Purdue University student Yeonsoo Go was freed from ICE custody following her arrest last Thursday. She arrived in the US from South Korea on an R-2 visa in 2021 with her mother.
Pix11, a New York news station, said that the South Korean student was returned to her family from the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana on Monday night.
Go, the daughter of a pioneering Episcopal priest, was released from ICE custody after a large number of family members and friends came together to support the student studying pharmaceutical sciences.
Yeonsoo Go’s arrest sparked protests
On Monday, there were happy scenes as the mother and daughter reunited at 26 Federal Plaza, the same location from where she was arrested.
Her arrest sparked outrage among civil rights organizations, Korean American advocacy groups, and religious institutions.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that Go’s visa expired more than two years ago, but her lawyer maintained that it is still in effect and will remain in effect until the end of this year.
The release on Monday night followed demonstrations outside the federal building in Lower Manhattan over the weekend.
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Yeonsoo Go breaks silence on her arrest
After her release. Go told PIX11 that “everything just feels surreal” as she walked out of the jail and headed back to Scarsdale, New York, with her mother Rev. Kyrie Kim.
When questioned about her detention at Federal Plaza and in Louisiana, she just said, “I was praying hard.”
Yeonsoo Go’s mother expresses happiness
Go, a recent Scarsdale High School graduate, is enrolled at Purdue University and has been in the nation since 2021 on a religious visa.
Speaking about her daughter’s release from ICE detention facility, Kim pointed out that her daughter is lucky compared to many other captives. “It’s not [just] Soo in this situation. There are more, maybe, those in need of support.”
“I’m just happy that she’s with me,” she stated.
Church leaders and advocacy organizations said that five plainclothes officers encircled Go and took her into custody. She was not given the chance to talk with her lawyer further, and no warrant was shown at the scene, as per her family and supporters.
Department of Homeland Security officers provided a radically different account of what happened last week.
“Yeonsoo Go, an illegal alien from South Korea, overstayed her visa that expired more than two years ago,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated in a statement.
Where is Yeonsoo Go? South Korean student released from ICE detention facility after huge outcry
