PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Kenia Jackeline “Jackie” Merlos, a Portland woman with a pending immigration documents, was detained for four months by United States immigration authorities. But with help from a secret message in a coloring book and “tenacity” from her community, she was recently released from custody.

“We became friends through a couple interactions and then have been like a sisterhood since,” Mimi Lettunich told KOIN 6 News.

Merlos and her husband, Carlos, own a construction company that worked on Lettunich’s Portland home and from that moment forward, Merlos and Lettunich have been friends for more than 20 years.

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“(We’re) very close. I mean, she helped with things with our kids, and I trust her implicitly. She’s an amazing person,” Lettunich described. “She looks at everything as a privilege, as an opportunity. Her glass is half full all the time and even during this crazy time, she says, ‘Mimi, it will not be forever. Will not be forever.’ She kept her faith and it worked out.”

That “crazy time” would involve Merlos and her U.S. citizen children being detained by immigration authorities and her husband being deported.

‘Nobody knew where she was or the children’

On June 28, 2025, Merlos traveled from her Portland home with her nine-year-old triplets and seven-year-old son, along with Merlos’ mother, to Peace Arch State Park at the border between Washington state and Canada, according to attorneys and friends of Merlos.

There, the family met with Merlos’ sister (a permanent resident of Canada), brother-in-law (a Canadian citizen) and their two children.

As the family said their goodbyes, that’s when federal authorities moved in, according to court documents.

“While saying their goodbyes, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers approached and accused (Merlos) of attempting to smuggle her sister, niece, and nephew into the United States. (Merlos) and all accompanying relatives, including six children (were) taken into custody,” court documents filed by Merlos’ attorney claim.

At the time of the incident, Merlos had pending immigration documents — a U Visa for crime victims — not yet finalized by the federal government.

Court filings from Merlos’s attorney indicate that Merlos and her children were then held in CBP custody for two weeks, alleging that “CBP officers repeatedly refused her requests to speak with counsel and sought to remove her and her children to Honduras,” where Merlos is originally from, after leaving for the U.S. in 2003.

“My father had just passed away a few days before (Merlos) and her children were detained) and when I got back to Portland, I talked to (Merlos’s) husband and he said that she was detained. As soon as we heard that, we instantly put everything into trying to find her because it wasn’t that she was detained and in most situations you can call an ICE facility. Nobody knew where she was or the children and that was incredibly alarming,” Lettunich told KOIN 6 News.

“So, we – within 24 hours – had hired attorneys and reached out to friends and family and got connected to (Congresswoman Maxine Dexter), she and her office were incredible, and national associations. I mean, we just put all feelers out and tried to put a plan together to find them,” Lettunich explained.

Lettunich noted in August during a congressional hearing where she shared Merlos’s story, “It became painfully clear, without our tenacity and connections, Jackie and her family would have disappeared without a trace.”

Merlos and her children were taken by CBP agents to an immigration facility north of Bellingham, Washington, according to Merlos’s attorney.

Congresswoman Dexter learned of the family’s detainment around July 8 and her team worked to determine their whereabouts. Two days later, Dexter’s team found the Merlos family at the Bellingham facility, claiming CBP initially “misled them,” about where the family was. According to Dexter, Merlos and her children were detained “without cause.”

“They have provided as humane as a possible situation in a small cell with a cement floor and there’s some mats that are probably four inches thick for the family,” Dexter previously said.

Lettunich noted she was not allowed inside the facility where Merlos and her children were being held, noting Congresswoman Dexter was allowed to see them through glass but could not speak to them.

“A lot of what I know about those conditions are what we know from the congresswoman and what we know from the children and Jackie. We also know that this is not a facility where they hold people. We know that Jackie and her children were the only ones there. It’s not set up to hold people,” Lettunich claimed. “It was all in secrecy. They’re not set up to feed people, they’re not set up to have people have places to sleep. They were there for different reasons and we’re not totally clear why.”

KOIN 6 News has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about the claims of the facility conditions.

According to Lettunich, while Merlos and her children were detained, federal agents questioned the children about their father. CBP agents then contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement and on Oct. 2, a judge reinstated Carlos Merlos’ prior removal order to Honduras. According to Oregon lawmakers, he was deported as his wife and children remained in the Washington immigration facility.

‘A race against time’

Oregon lawmakers advocated for Merlos and her children’s release from ICE custody. The effort included Congresswomen Dexter and Suzanne Bonamici along with Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, who helped Merlos receive an emergency order which temporarily halted the family’s deportation.

On July 14, U.S. District Court Judge Tana Lin in Seattle found that the family was “serially re-located and denied access with counsel.” The judge issued an emergency order that halted Merlos’ deportation, prevented CBP from moving the Merlos family from the court’s jurisdiction and allowed the family to access legal counsel, Oregon lawmakers previously announced.

It was a close call, according to Lettunich, who testified during the congressional hearing about the “race against time,” to get the emergency order as immigration authorities got passports for the children and a plane was ready to take the family out of the U.S.

Once the order was issued, Lettunich said immigration officials called her and asked her to pick up the children from the airport.

“I picked the kids up at the airport moments before they’re getting on a flight with brand new passports. I mean, we got a temporary restraining order, and just in time, and all of that was based on hunches and Congresswoman Dexter’s office making calls,” Lettunich said.

While the children were being released, CBP served Merlos with a Notice to Appear, charging her under the Immigration and Nationality Act as an alien present without admission or parole, and no criminal charges were filed against her, court documents state. Merlos was later transferred from CBP custody to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody where Oregon lawmakers said she remained despite her removal proceedings being terminated.

Lettunich described the wave of emotions while picking up the children, saying she was elated for the emergency order, but she still couldn’t see her friend.

“I was so nervous about how the kids would feel, every trauma they had gone through. We weren’t prepared to just have the four kids come back to the house, I mean what are they going to have for dinner? I’m working tomorrow, there’s so many emotions going on. And you’re trying to process and I’m also feeling terrible for Jackie. I still haven’t seen her, I haven’t talked to her and I’m taking the kids and how horrible that has to feel for her too,” Lettunich told KOIN 6.

A hidden message

A secret message in a coloring book, however, would give Lettunich insight into how Merlos was feeling.

“We got in the car, and the kids shared a secret,” Lettunich testified at the congressional hearing. “They handed me this coloring book where Jackie had written me a note on the inside cover.”

“Mimi, thank you for everything,” Jackie’s letter to Lettunich said. “Hopefully, this will be over soon. I will miss my babies. Please take care of them. This is so hard…I talked to them that they need to obey you. I miss them already. Everything works for good. We are on God’s hand. I have been praying so much about this. Love you all with all my heart.”

A note at the end of the message explained that one of the children had an upcoming orthodontist appointment, adding, “please call them. I haven’t been able to use my phone since they detained us. Love, Jackie.”

“I think (Jackie’s message) was a punctuation on the fact that there was no communication, that they were purposely kept from the rest of the world and that the children were holding (the coloring book) close to them and then telling me ‘Mom left you a note.’ The secrecy and the fear associated with that. They couldn’t give that up. And the note was just a beautiful message,” Lettunich told KOIN 6 News.

“It was just (Jackie) being a mom and she was kept from doing that. And then four months in total, like this is our vicious criminal?” Lettunich questioned. “The secret note that she had to let me know was ‘Thank you. Take care of the kids and don’t forget the orthodontist appointment.’ It was a punctuation on the egregious behavior of our government.”

‘It takes a village and the village won’

After a judge dropped proceedings for Merlos to be removed from the U.S., immigration authorities did not release her and she remained in custody, according to Oregon lawmakers.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for CBP previously told KOIN 6 News “Kenia Jackeline Merlos was arrested by Border Patrol agents in Peace Arch Park attempting to smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S. on June 28. Initially, the children remained with the mother – at her request – in Border Patrol custody.” The agency declined to comment at the time on the ongoing litigation.

While speaking in front of lawmakers at the congressional hearing advocating for Merlos’s release, Lettunich shared a message from the children. “I leave you with a request from these children: please help mom and dad get home.”

An attorney for Merlos filed a petition for habeas corpus, arguing for Merlos’s release from custody. Merlos’s attorney, Stacey Rogers with SRR Law Group, confirmed to KOIN 6 on Monday that the U.S. Attorney’s Office conferred with Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the petition was filed and agreed to release Merlos.

“I think that that’s what we want out leadership to be doing,” Lettunich said of the efforts of Oregon lawmakers who advocated for Merlos. “I think the other thing that’s really important about this event, is that it’s bipartisan. Regardless of the way you voted, people over and over to us said, ‘This isn’t what we voted for. This was never part of the plan.’”

Alongside the support from some elected officials, Lettunich lauded the community support.

“Thousands, literally thousands of people participated in one form or another, whether that was dropping something off here for the kids, or signing a petition or contributing to a GoFundMe or helping make sure that they were set up for school, buying them coats for winter. The outreach, the letter, it shows to me that we’re not as far apart as it’s presented to us in media,” Lettunich said. “We’re all human and we all really believe that our families should be together, that love is the basis for choosing our communities and that we need to refocus what we’re doing.”

Jackie was release from custody on October 27 after four months in detainment. Lettuncih described receiving a text from one of Merlos’s attorneys announcing her release.

“There’s a lot of people on many theads and texts and emails constantly all day, every day for four months and something came across that said from one of the many attorneys that said, ‘ICE is letting her go today,’” Lettunich said.

“We were in meetings, my husband and I, and we got up right then and got in the car and made phone calls along the way,” Lettunich explained, noting they picked up Merlos from the Tacoma ICE facility while Merlos’s children were at school. Merlos was there to surprise her children when they returned.

“I’m so grateful that she is home, I am so grateful that the children have their mom and that she has her beautiful babies,” Lettunich said. “It’s hard to describe. We aren’t all parents but we all have one and we know what that feels like and that was amazing. It was an amazing day…it was magic.”

Like Merlos, Lettunich embodied an attitude of not giving up.

“We can’t give up. We just literally can’t give up,” Lettunich said. “Good and justice will prevail.”

“We need to lean into our leaders in every state and lawmakers, we’re humans. I keep going back to everybody’s human. They want to break up families. They don’t want to pull children apart from parents. They don’t want to put people in jail, in prisons that they are contributing to society and have done all the things we require of them that’s not what anybody wants,” Lettunich told KOIN 6.

When asked what’s next for Merlos, Lettunich said, “Jackie will determine that,” adding, “Jackie’s a strong human, and she’s passionate, and she’s good, and I’m confident that she will use this experience to help others that don’t have the same connections and resources that she personally did.”

“It takes a village,” Lettunich recalled her husband telling her of Jackie’s release. “And the village won.”