US Teen Deported By Mistake Returns Home

A 15-year-old girl from Texas has been reunited with her family seven months after being mistakenly deported to Colombia as an illegal immigrant.

Jakadrien Turner was deported by US officials in May 2011 after running away from her home in Dallas and being arrested for shoplifting in Houston.

The Colombian foreign ministry released the girl to US consular officials after documents were shown proving she was an American citizen.

She was flown home to Dallas on Friday where she was met by her family and friends looking subdued but smiling for the cameras.

A family spokesman at the airport said: "The family is ecstatic. We are planning to get some rest; planning to do what we can to make sure that she is able to get back to living a normal life.

"But we are so happy and we are ready to get her home."

Jakadrien was just 14 when she ran away from her home and was arrested for theft by Houston police.

When taken to the police station she gave a false name and age to officials who fingerprinted her believing she was a 21-year-old criminal from Colombia - even though she did not speak the language.

The schoolgirl was then put on a programme to deport illegal immigrants caught committing a crime.

Two months later the American teenager was given a Colombian passport and flown to Bogota where she was placed on a repatriation scheme.

Jakadrien's grandmother Lorene Turner said the family finally managed to track the missing teenager down to the South American city after finding a Facebook page that she had created there.

The Colombian government is investigating how a passport was issued to an American citizen based on "inaccurate and unrealistic" statements.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok said the agency was taking the case very seriously and would "fully and immediately investigating the matter".

Lorene Turner said her granddaughter is now pregnant.