WA farmworker activist arrested by ICE to voluntarily leave U.S.
By Lauren Girgis, The Seattle Times
Published: July 15, 2025, 9:33am
TACOMA — Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, a 25-year-old union farmworker activist who has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for nearly four months, decided Monday to leave the country voluntarily.
His decision comes as the Trump administration has encouraged self-deportation” and “voluntary departure” as part of its widespread immigration crackdown.
Juarez Zeferino, a Sedro-Woolley man who is a member of the Indigenous Mexican Mixteco community, has organized on behalf of farmworker rights in Washington state since he was 14 years old and worked as a berry picker. He was arrested by immigration officers in March while he was driving his partner to her job at a tulip bulb company in Mount Vernon.
During an immigration court hearing on Monday, Juarez Zeferino elected to leave the country for Mexico by “voluntary departure,” a move akin to but different from self-deportation. His attorney, Larkin VanDerhoef, said the decision could remove some barriers for him to return to the U.S. one day.
https://www.columbian.com/news/2025/jul/15/wa-farmworker-activist-arrested-by-ice-to-voluntarily-leave-u-s/
