ST. LOUIS (AP) — The publisher of a Spanish-language newspaper said Saturday she will continue her work even though she has been deported after a five-year legal battle over her immigration status.
Cecilia Velazquez was escorted into Mexico on Friday and will be barred from re-entering the United States for 10 years, said Carl Rusnok, spokesman for the Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency.
Velazquez, 36, is the publisher of Red Latina, meaning "Latin network." She also is president of Radio CuCui.
Velazquez had entered the country on a visitors visa, but Rusnok said she was stopped in December 2000 in Houston by authorities who determined she was "actually an intending immigrant." He said she was given two weeks to return to Mexico but remained in this country and was arrested in 2003 in St. Louis.