For nearly six months, Crest High graduate Allison Bustillo has been held in the Steward Detention Center in Georgia after she was snatched from her home in Charlotte on Feb. 25, transported out of state, and kept behind bars hundreds of miles away from her mother and brothers.
Bustillo, who spent most of her life in Cleveland County after arriving in the United States with her mother when she was 8-years-old, is now waiting to find out her fate.
'Walk in someone else's shoes'
Fuquay-Varina United Methodist Church, in Fuquay-Varina, is hosting an event called "A Heart Movement," which will feature speakers, a panel for a question and answer session, the telling of immigrant stories and a call to action.
"Please invite friends and neighbors, including those who may not agree," the event page said. "This is an incredibly important opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes for an evening."
The page featured different stories from immigrants, including Bustillo's.
"Allison Bustillo Chinchilla, now 20, came to the U.S. from Honduras at age 8," said the post, written by Angie Ottosen Staheli, actress and director who helped organize the event. "She grew up in North Carolina, graduated from high school, earned a scholarship, and was studying to become a nurse while caring for her autistic younger brother."
The post said on Feb. 20, ICE agents stormed her family’s Charlotte apartment with guns drawn and no warrant.
"Allison, her mother, and brother were taken. Only Allison remains in custody, transferred to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, where she’s been held for over five months. She has no criminal record," Staheli said. "Despite the fact that she was a child when she came, ICE refuses to release her. She’s missed college classes, suffered from untreated scoliosis and anxiety in detention, and been denied parole multiple times."
Months later, and the blue door of the apartment off of W.T. Harris Boulevard in Charlotte, still shows the force ICE agents used to break into the home, the concave dent in the exterior serving as a continual reminder of the nightmare that the family is still living.
On the morning of Thursday, Feb. 20, Keily Chinchilla said she was already at her construction job when she got a distraught call from Bustillo, her daughter, who had been making breakfast for her younger brothers.
She said around a dozen law enforcement officers had broken down the door and were in the house. In broken English mixed with Spanish, Chinchilla said the agents had been there looking for someone else, someone who didn't live in the house anymore, but days after the incident Bustillo received a court order demanding she appear before an immigration judge.
She was then taken to Stewart Detention Center.
Seeking a better life
Chinchilla said she fled the poverty and violence of Honduras with two of her four children in 2012, and the family ended up settling in Shelby where they lived up until recently. Her two youngest children were born in the United States.
Hanging on the wall of the tidy Charlotte apartment are photos of Bustillo in her green Crest High graduation cap and gown, long dark hair swept back, a brilliant smile splitting her face.
Other photos of her siblings and mother are scattered around the apartment.
Bustillo's little dog, Bella, looks forlorn. Her mother said, like the rest of the family, the dog has been missing Bustillo.
Since she was taken, Chinchilla has been communicating with her daughter through an app that allows her to text and call her at the detention facility.
She said Bustillo isn't doing well. She's unable to eat or sleep, has been suffering from panic attacks and isn't receiving adequate treatment for her scoliosis. She said she is contained in a crowded room with around 90 other people.
"Demasiado," her mother says in Spanish.
Too much.
Chinchilla wipes away tears as she talks about how she has relied on Bustillo, who has helped raise her younger brother, Noah, who was diagnosed with severe autism.
"It's very unfair that they're causing so much pain to good people, who only want to work in this country and contribute good things and to young people who have a bight future and are people who only want to get ahead and study," she said through the help of a translation app.
Chinchilla has been forced to wear an ankle monitor and is not allowed to leave the house, except to go to work. ICE agents come to the home periodically to do check-ins, and she said she is afraid for her second oldest, who will be 18 in October.
Bustillo has an attorney in Georgia, an attorney Chinchilla said she paid $2,000, but she said she doesn't know what's happening with her daughter's case, and she receives very little communication. Her court dates keep getting canceled, but she isn't told why. A few months ago, a fundraiser was started to help raise money for another attorney.
"My wonderful daughter Allison Bustillo is a good girl, she arrived with her brother and me when she was 8 years old, we were kidnapped by immigration when they were looking for another person," she wrote on the GoFundMe page.
She wrote that Allison could not obtain legal status since the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program was canceled, and "they did not give more opportunities to new dreamers."
"She is very grateful to God for giving her the opportunity to grow in this country and be able to graduate as a nursing assistant and win a scholarship to Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina," Chinchilla said. "A young woman very dedicated to her studies and a great human being. She loves taking care of the elderly in her work in nursing homes and her little brother, Noah, who is an autistic child and her little brother Alan who misses her very much."
She said Bustillo is her support.
"I am a single mother, and I work in construction to be able to raise my children and give them what they need, I thank everyone for their noble help to be able to pay for her lawyers and for her to be released since she has no crimes and is unjustly detained in Stewart Detention Center Georgia, thank all for your support blessing," she concluded.
'Allison doesn't know any other life but here'
Chinchilla said Allison spent most of her life in Shelby, attending Springmore Elementary School and graduating from Crest High in 2023. While she was still a high school student, she took classes at Cleveland Community College and following graduation, took the CNA test in South Carolina. While still a student, she started working at TerraBella in Shelby and then got a job at TerraBella in Lake Norman.
Chinchilla keeps a folder of documents that contains court orders, letters from members of Beaver Dam Baptist Church in Shelby, which the family attended for years, vouching for Allison, and various accolades, awards and certificates.
She received the Superintendent's Choice Award at the 2019 Cleveland County Arts Council student art competition. She was nominated for the Congress of Future Medical Leaders Award of Excellence for her academic record and leadership potential and inducted into the Cleveland County Schools Career and Technical Education Honor Society.
Jackie and Novella McClung, retired missionaries for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, said they moved back to Shelby after serving for more than 30 years and met Bustillo and her family.
The McClungs wrote that Allison is a joy to others and her family, helping to care for her three younger brothers.
"She is dependable, trustworthy and a positive asset to this country," they said. "She has been an excellent student in Springmore Elementary School, Crest Middle School and Crest High School. We were privileged to attend many honors days where she received awards. While in high school she took college classes at Cleveland Community College, preparing to become a nurse. She has plans to attend Gardner-Webb University to complete that goal."
They said that both Bustillo and Hanzel, her 17-year-old brother, were known to reach out to the lonely or left out kids in the church and make them feel welcome.
"Allison has always shown responsibility, respectability, and a genuine desire to make a difference in herself and others.Allison does not know any other life except here," the McClungs wrote. "She has few memories of Honduras.She has no family or friends in that country. Please show mercy to Allison, she deserves to be able to live in freedom in the country in which she has grown up."
Terryann Macke also wrote a judge asking for Allison to be allowed to remain in the United States.
"She is loved and treasured by those who know her," she wrote. "Please don't let Allison get lost."
Others spoke about Bustillo's strong faith, her dedication to her family and how she is pursuing a career.
"Deporting Allison would be a devastating loss, not only to her family and a community that loves her but also to the future patients who would benefit from her care," Rebekah Reynon wrote. "She has worked tirelessly to build a future here and I sincerely ask that she be given the opportunity to remain in the United States so she can continue her education an fulfill her dream of becoming a nurse and helping others."
Reach reporter Rebecca Sitzes at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Mother fights to keep daughter, Crest grad, from being deported
Comments