ICE arrested the adopted son of Maine state senator Denise Tepler earlier this week and held him for about two days before releasing him on Friday, according to his family.
The agency detained the man, Jessie Tepler-Mujambere, after a traffic stop by local police in Colebrook, N.H. on Wednesday. Tepler-Mujambere, 28, was on his way to move to Canada, his family said in interviews. He had recently become a Canadian citizen, and had his Canadian passport on him when he was arrested just about 10 miles from the Canadian border.
“We have a messed-up system,” Tepler, a Democrat from Sagadahoc County and Tepler-Mujambere’s adoptive mother, said in a phone interview with the Globe on Friday. “We need to be able to allow some people who have black skin to emigrate to the United States. I think there’s a real racist element to the enforcement now, and I’m very concerned about it.”
As of Friday afternoon, he was in Canada, his family said.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to the Globe that any allegations that DHS racially profiles people “are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE.”
“What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the US — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” a spokesperson said.
The DHS spokesperson said that Tepler-Mujambere flew to the US on a visa in November 2014, but overstayed his legal permission to be in the US, which expired in May 2015.
“A pending application does NOT confer legal status in the United States,” the spokesperson said.
Maya Tepler, Tepler-Mujambere’s adoptive sister, told the Globe that he started living with her parents in 2015, when he was 16. Maya Tepler’s older sister met Tepler-Mujambere while she was teaching English as a Second Language at a high school in Maine that had a large community of asylum seekers, including Tepler-Mujambere.
In just a few years, he became family and was adopted by her parents when he was 22.
He was in asylum proceedings to stay in the US, but his hope of securing legal status here faded under the second Trump administration’s immigration policies, his family said.
Tepler-Mujambere worked as a case manager, and as a direct support professional in a group home for individuals with disabilities. But earlier this year, Tepler-Mujambere’s work authorization in the US was not renewed, so he was looking for alternatives.
Although he loved the US, and his family, he felt it was time to go, his family said.
In the US, Maya Tepler said, her brother “couldn’t live out the life ... he wants to live.”
He decided on Canada.
Tepler, the Maine state senator, said her husband has dual Canadian citizenship because his family were Holocaust survivors who fled to Canada.
“He really wants to get on with the rest of his life, to be able to work, to build a life as a young man,” Tepler, his mother, said.
Colebrook’s police chief did not respond to a request for comment. The police department has a 287(g) agreement with ICE, which allows police officers to interrogate people suspected of being present in the country unlawfully and turn them over to ICE.
The DHS spokesperson said that ICE detained Tepler-Mujambere’s after he was pulled over for speeding, and that the “local 287(g)” partner had “determined he was illegally present in the United States.”
On Wednesday, the spokesperson said, Tepler-Mujambere “requested incentivized departure to Canada.”
Tepler spoke to her son on Friday afternoon, and he seemed to be in good spirits, she said. “I think he’s glad he’s in Canada — which is where he was going to begin with,” Tepler said.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr.