She should be celebrating Senior Night. Instead, this El Paso teen is in Dilley ICE detention.

Two months ago during homecoming celebrations, Michell Germán was crowned Lady-in -Waiting at El Paso High School, donning a white “Hoco Court” sash over her Tigerettes dance team uniform. Her mother and 11-year-old sister stood proudly beside her, holding small cellophane-wrapped flower bouquets.

Michell planned to participate in Senior Night festivities Friday, a celebration honoring senior student-athletes, performers and participants in extracurricular programs.

Instead, the 17-year-old and her father, mother and sister are sitting in the South Texas Family Residential Center near Austin after being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on their way to school two weeks ago.

“She’s missing memories she’ll never get back,” Congressman Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said in an Instagram post Thursday. Castro noted the school and dance team had planned a special recognition of Michell for Senior Night, but several people told El Paso Matters that she asked that not happen.

However, her friends had other plans: Carrying a poster with Michell’s photo and with tears in their eyes, they walked onto the field on Jones Stadium when her name was called.

Castro in his post said he met with the family at the detention center last week and called Michell “a bright young student.”

Those who know her say that might be an understatement.

“She and her family are incredible people, they’re good people with good hearts,” 17-year-old Ximena Terrazas said about her friend and dance troupe colleague. They often talked about teenage girl stuff, she said, including boyfriends, teachers, homework, music and dance routines.

And whether it was offering an ear or a shoulder or hands-on help, Michell has been trustworthy and reliable, she noted. “She has always been there for me and our other friends. She always offers to help with whatever we need.”

Michell is enrolled at El Paso High’s Center for Career and Technology Education program, where she’s studying cosmetology and working toward her state license. She aspires to be a cosmetic surgeon, according to her school’s social media posts.

Besides spending hours practicing and performing with the Tigerretes, she worked part time at a smoothie shop and regularly volunteered with seniors.

“She has dreams, she has the potential, character and drive to accomplish them and become a productive member of society. You have a young lady doing everything right – studying hard, taking on extracurricular activities, working, volunteering, helping her community,” said El Paso attorney Veronica Vallejo, an El Paso High School booster and volunteer who has known Michell for at least a year.

“Everything is getting ripped away from her. … This is wrong.. This is bigger than immigration, it’s about a young woman’s life,” Vallejo said, adding that she’s concerned about Michell’s well-being.

Austin immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch and her law firm are representing the family in their removal defense case in immigration court.

“The family came to the U.S. more than four years ago, and were living like any other family: Mom and Dad worked, the girls went to school, and their paperwork was in order. They did everything right, and in an instant, everything changed,” Lincoln-Goldfinch told El Paso Matters in a statement. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a statement said Michell’s father, Pablo Jose Guerrero-Pimentel, was detained during “targeted enforcement arrests” on Oct. 22. Michelle was with him at the time and was also detained. Michelle was with him and was also detained. 

In a separate enforcement the same day, ICE said, agents arrested Dolores Emilia Zarraga-Colina, Michell’s mother, who was with the 11-year-old.

ICE said neither Guerrero-Pimentel nor Zarraga-Colina had any documentation to remain in the U.S. legally. 

Lincoln-Goldfinch, however, said the entire family is in “valid immigration proceedings, has a lawyer and work permits, and has no criminal record.”

“The girls are traumatized,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “They are jailed and treated like criminals though they have done nothing wrong and have no control over what happens to them.”

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ICE arrests continue to surge across the country – including in El Paso – as President Donald Trump’s administration enforces its mass detention and deportation agenda. The administration has moved to end programs such as temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, at the same time expanding arrests to include people with pending asylum claims or other immigration applications.

Ximena said her friend’s detention brought home the reality of that enforcement.

“She sent me a photo of her in the patrol car and said she was afraid,” Ximena said about when Michell was first arrested, adding she and her teammates cried for hours after hearing about the detention. 

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“Since this happened, we see how hurtful this all is. I know a lot of people around school are paying more attention to the news and information about immigration and raids and ICE,” Ximena said. She added that she’s realized how many people are “ignorant and lack empathy because of the hate comments we see online and how they’re happy these things happen. It’s really sad.”

Ximena said she recently had a 30-second call with Michell from Dilley before the call dropped. Michell sounded calm but different, she said, and told her she missed her and her dance team. She also said she hadn’t seen her dad because the family had been separated at the detention center, Ximena added.

Michell and her family, originally from Venezuela, were taken to the ICE El Paso Service Processing Center on Montana Avenue near the airport after being arrested. The next day, they were at the controversial family immigration detention facility in Dilley, Texas, south of San Antonio.

The 2,400-bed center, operated by CoreCivic under a $160 million a year federal contract, has faced intense scrutiny, public protests and calls for closure over numerous allegations of human rights violations, including poor water and food quality, unsanitary conditions, medical neglect and limited communication access between detainees and their attorneys or family members.

The prolonged detention of children at Dilley has also come into question as many detainees have surpassed the 20-day limit established by the 1997 federal court ruling known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, which set standards for the detention, treatment, placement and release of children in U.S. immigration custody.

In August, a California federal judge appointed a master and independent monitor at Dilley to oversee compliance with the Flores settlement.

“We’re very concerned about (the children’s) mental health, and we’re very concerned about their nutrition and their sleep,” said Leecia Welch, deputy litigation director at the Children’s Rights national nonprofit advocacy organization, who served as co-counsel in the Flores case.

Welch said she has been to Dilley more than a dozen times meeting with families in relation to the Flores settlement. 

“We act as watchdogs for how children are being treated in immigration custody,” she said. “We’re talking about the bare minimum; we’re talking about safe and sanitary conditions for children and their overall well-being. With Dilley, we see them not even being able to meet bare minimum standards. So we’re concerned about improving the day-to-day lives of children who have been detained at Dilley and obviously decreasing the amount of time they have to spend in these awful conditions.”

Castro called for ICE to release the family immediately, and called on Democrats to get to work to “shut down the Dilley Trailer Prison and end family detention once and for all.”

Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, echoed a similar sentiment, citing this week’s midterm election that returned control of Congress to Democrats as a way forward. On Facebook, she said a constituent reached out to her for help with the family and in turn she reached out to Castro.

“The election results give us an opportunity to end the cruelty and we intend to do everything possible (to) bring it to an end,” she said.

Editor’s note: 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7: This story has been updated with comments from the family’s attorney as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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