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A college student flying to Austin was detained and deported by immigration authorities. She was trying to surprise her family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Now she’s having to finish her semester of college in a different country. Her lawyer says her deportation went against a federal court order. We’ll have more about the reason for her deportation and what the next steps in her story are.
What do you imagine when you hear “dragon boat racing”? Fire spewing out across Lady Bird Lake? Boats speeding fast across and over the water? We’ll have a look at what it’s all about.
Plus, it’s that time of season for caroling and lighting up the big ol’ tree. Find out what’s happening this weekend in Downtown Austin.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:10] A college student flying to Austin was detained and deported by immigration authorities. She was trying to surprise her family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Now she’s having to finish her semester of college in a different country. Her lawyer says her deportation went against a federal court order. We’re gonna have more about the reason for her deportation and what the next steps in her story are. That’s coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:31] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:36] And what do you imagine when you hear dragon boat racing? Fire spewing out across Ladybird Lake, boats speeding fast across and even out of the water. Come find out what it’s really all about. Plus, it’s the time of season for caroling and lighting up big old trees. Find out what’s happening this weekend in downtown Austin. That’s up next on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, thank you for listening. This is Austin Signal. It’s Wednesday, December third. We are halfway through the week. I’m your host, Jerry Kehonnell. Thanks for spending part of your day here with us. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, a Boston area college student boarded a plane headed for Austin. She had plans to surprise her family for the holiday. Instead, she was taken into federal custody and deported to Honduras. Her lawyer says that deportation went against a federal court order. For more about this story, we are speaking with KUT’s government accountability reporter Andrew Weber. Good afternoon, Andrew.
Andrew Weber [00:01:42] Good afternoon, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:43] So tell us a little bit about the student, who is Annie Lopez Bayosa?
Andrew Weber [00:01:47] She’s a nineteen-year-old business student at Babson College up in the Boston area. And like you said, on November twentieth, she tried to board a flight. She wanted to surprise her folks down here for Thanksgiving, and she was told to just go back to the the the gate. Okay. She wasn’t really told why, so she did that. She went back to the gate. They said something was wrong with her ticket, and she was met by her attorney says immigration officials right there at the gate, and they detained her.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:14] Yeah, w and what was the reason that those officials gave her for the detainment in the first place?
Andrew Weber [00:02:18] Yeah, the ICE immigration customs enforcement folks told me she had violated a final order to to leave the country, a final deportation order. She came with her family to the US when she was a kid, and she thought that she had legal status because they were seeking asylum. ICE told me she was detained lawfully for violating that that twenty fifteen order, and her attorney told me that she was taken into from the from the gate, out of the airport, into a van. He said that the the agents were masked, and she was taken to a suburban ice facility, suburban Boston ICE facility. Then from there she was taken to Texas and she was deported back to Honduras within two days. And you try to board that flight.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:05] You’ve been speaking with her attorney, Todd Pomerlo. What else has he told you about the situation?
Andrew Weber [00:03:09] Well, like you said at the top, you said that this was un it was completely unlawful. That before she was, you know, immigration status rather legal status aside, he said that a federal judge said, You can’t deport this person until they have a chance to go before an immigration judge. And that is clearly not what happened.
Todd Pomerleau [00:03:30] At the end of the day, this is a college student who came here at seven years old to seek asylum with her family. She’s not responsible under the law for any decisions her parents made about her. She didn’t enter illegally, like the government is claiming. Asylum is a legal process. Regardless of how much the administration may not like asylum, it’s protected by federal law and they were following the law.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:55] So what do we know about Annie’s location right now?
Andrew Weber [00:03:58] Yeah, yeah. Pomerolo told me that she is in Aldados with her grandparents right now. But she, you know, doesn’t know when she’s gonna be able to come back or even finish the semester at at Babson.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:09] What do we know about the administration’s response to the situation or to the attorney Pomerlo? Wha what happens next? What have they said?
Andrew Weber [00:04:17] Yeah, Pablo said that ICE hasn’t really spoken to him at all. But they did they did respond to a request for comment for us from us, excuse me, and they said that she went through the full due process, which is important because of that federal court order. And you know, they haven’t really responded to the feds, that is, haven’t really responded to that court order.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:42] Okay.
Andrew Weber [00:04:42] There was a request for, you know, response by today. I haven’t seen anything on that yet. But you know, largely Todd Pomerolo, the attorney, said that they want to continue fighting this even if, you know, the feds aren’t gonna respond to to this case.
Todd Pomerleau [00:04:59] They ignored my phone calls. They haven’t even acknowledged the email that said we were her lawyer. I mean I mean I guess they don’t have time to read emails these days, but again we’re taking her to court and we’re gonna seek justice for any one way or another. We’re not I promised her we’re not stopping till she comes back.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:15] And has he had any further communication with her since as you’ve been reporting the story out?
Andrew Weber [00:05:20] Not since I talked to him yesterday. I haven’t heard anything since
Jerry Quijano [00:05:23] Okay, we I’ve been speaking with KUT’s government accountability reporter, Andrew Weber. You can find more about this reporting in today’s podcast show notes. That is at KUT dot org slash signal. Andrew, thanks for speaking with us.
Andrew Weber [00:05:37] Thank you, Jerk.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:46] And we’ve had a lot of reporting on the Austin Signal this week. And as always, as I mentioned earlier, you can listen to the show at K U T.orgslash Signal. And we are with you every single weekday afternoon from one until one thirty. We got a lot more coming up on all things considered this afternoon as well. So be sure and stay with us and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. We’re gonna be back in just a moment. This is the signal. Thank you for listening. This is community powered public radio K U T News, and you are tuned in to Austin Signal. Joining us now is Maile Carballo from our sister station K U T X. Howdy, Maile, it’s been a while since we chatted with you.
Maile Carballo [00:06:31] Hey Jerry, I’m doing great. How are you doing?
Jerry Quijano [00:06:34] I’m doing fantastic and you know, we are getting into the spirits. There’s been a lot of discussion on NPR as of late about Christmas music. You know, some so many people have so many feelings about Christmas music and we’re gonna add some more to that discussion, right? Because there’s A in a big event happening this Saturday in downtown Austin. A big tree is getting lit. What’s happening?
Maile Carballo [00:06:55] Absolutely. It’s the annual K U T K U T X and Downtown Austin Alliance holiday sing along. It’s been going on for a long time now and it’s this Saturday the sixth from five to eight PM. It’s gonna be a great time.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:08] Yeah, like you said, it’s been going on for a long time. You know, our predecessor here at the station, John Ailey, started this tradition a long time ago. And and there’s so much community investment in this event. I feel like every time I go, the people are
Maile Carballo [00:07:23] So excited. Jones and for the carols. Yeah, and the great thing about that too, mentioning John Ailey, he started the tradition of singing, you know, cr carols of all holidays, Christmas Kwanzaa, all sorts. And the KUT and KUTX peoples, you I’m I’m sure included have sung up there before. Well you
Jerry Quijano [00:07:45] Well you know, I actually have not sung before up on the stage. I have a little bit of stage fry, but this year I’ve been asked to be part of the Carolers. So I you know, I’m w apparently we have a practice tomorrow for this caroling. So I will be up there, but we have about an hour of Caroling from K U T and K U T X staff. But it wouldn’t be an Austin event if we didn’t have even more live music. There’s some additional music happening too, right?
Maile Carballo [00:08:08] That is correct. So at if you arrive at five PM, you can walk down. There’s vendors, there’s music happening. Amber Blue Music, which is a children’s entertainer, will be there. Entertaining the kiddos. So feel free to bring them out. It is free for them as well. And yeah, the K U T and K U T Xers will begin a holiday sing along starting at six and then we’ll sing into the tree lighting at seven PM.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:32] Yeah, it’s always a great time. It’s a great event for your children, and it looks like it’s shaping up to be a really good one weather wise as well this Saturday. Nice and chilly. I was saying yesterday on on the show that sometimes these events are kind of like I’m wearing like a t shirt and shorts to these events, but this year it’ll actually be chilly. Again, that’s happening from five until eight o’clock this Saturday night. The K U T and K U T X holiday sing along and stroll downtown. Okay, Maile, let’s switch planes a little bit. As we’re beginning to wrap up twenty twenty five, it’s only the third of December, but we still have some time to go. It seems like AI is creeping into more and more industries. We’re hearing about how more and more companies and organizations are partnering with AI or or bringing AI into the mix. Music is not exempted from that discussion. And one of the bigger music companies in the world is partnering with an AI company, but I got your notes. You’re saying this is a company that that was s they were suing and now they’re bringing on board. What’s the story here?
Maile Carballo [00:09:26] Yeah, so we’re talking about Warner Music Group. They have been in a massive copyright lawsuit with the AI program Suno. Suno is known for kind of music oriented AI creation. And Warner has basically been saying, you know, Suno, you’re using our music, all of our artists unappropriately, inappropriately, and we want you to pay us basically. We we want our musicians to be paid. So they just settled this massive copyright lawsuit and pitchfork Pitchfork reported this last week that they’re partnering with them and they’re actually gonna launch a brand new legal licensed AI model in association with Warner starting in twenty twenty six.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:11] One question that made me think about was like the the artists or or associated signed to Warner. Do they have do they have to participate in this? How does this work with the artists that work under them?
Maile Carballo [00:10:20] They do not. So what this means for the musicians that we listen to, so Warner represents, you know, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Madonna, all of the big
Jerry Quijano [00:10:28] Some pretty big names.
Maile Carballo [00:10:29] Pretty big names, they will now have the option to opt in or out of using AI with their music creation. So it’s kind of still a little bit vague, a little bit gray and weird, especially as we kind of grow into a season of and maybe it a new lifetime of AI generated music. I don’t know. People are not happy about it. Yeah. Me included.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:52] What are some of the concerns that we’re hearing from folks about about this potential or about this partnership that is going to happen?
Maile Carballo [00:10:58] Yeah, for sure. I mean it blurs the lines of, you know, originality, what’s real, what’s not, what can Suno claim as, you know, original music in terms of, you know, let’s say Ed Sheeran wants to opt in and use it for his music. It’s it’s still kind of the the lines are not quite there yet. But it’s definitely gonna be a necessity for a lot of the bigger groups coming up. They’re gonna opt in and actually alongside Warner, other big groups have been associated with Clay, which is another AI.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:32] Okay.
Maile Carballo [00:11:33] Sort of music integration system and it’s just kind of freaky. It’s a lot of freaky stuff.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:39] Lot of freaky stuff and I’m sure I I can see maybe it has some possibilities for a smaller name as you’re trying to expand and you know, kind of a a slippery slope there. We have been speaking with Maile Carbio from our sister station K U T X with the great update. As always. Maile, thank you.
Maile Carballo [00:11:56] Thank you, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:01] This is Austin Signal. Thanks for being with us today. For the most part, everybody’s got a thing, my least thing is in music. Something that they, you know, just do for themselves, not a job, not a responsibility. It’s just something that brings them joy or feeds their soul. Mike Lee is the host of the This Is My Thing podcast. He says in their latest episode when we hear about dragon boat racing, you know, this is really a thing.
Beth Rowan [00:12:29] My name is Beth Rowan and I’m a member of Austin’s first and only breast cancer survivor dragon boat team. It’s called Paddles with a Purpose. Reach. Reach you guys. It’s the traditional Asian longboat, the dragon boat. It’s been around for thousands of years, but it has been recently within the last 30 years discovered to be very helpful for breast cancer survivors because it’s moves the lymph node system. So when we’re paddling, we get a good workout of upper body movement. So it’s extremely helpful for breast cancer survivors.
Mike Lee [00:13:14] Were you seeking out some form of exercise that would help you in your continuing recovery?
Beth Rowan [00:13:20] Well yes, I saw the flyer in the gym. I was going to the gym regularly and saw the flyer and I have done some canoeing before, which I love. I love being on the water. It’s extremely good for my soul to be on the water. So paddling with twenty other women in the boat with me for practice and then doing racing is so fulfilling and just so wonderful. It’s a wonderful group of supportive women and we encourage each other to stay healthy.
Mike Lee [00:13:57] So you already had some experience with boating and I I feel like I should mention the elephant in the room, which is that your last name is Rowan. Which is a big part of the activity that you’re I know I’m not the first person to mention this.
Beth Rowan [00:14:11] You might be, actually.
Mike Lee [00:14:15] That’s surprising to me.
Beth Rowan [00:14:16] Yes, yes, that’s really funny.
Mike Lee [00:14:19] But rowing is something that is not only good for you, but you something you already enjoyed.
Beth Rowan [00:14:23] Yes, indeed. Indeed. I have done a little bit of rowing in a skull on Ladybird Lake, but this is paddling because we only have one paddle and we use it on the side and we all paddle in sync. So the key part about being fast in the boat boat is that we all are in sync absolutely as much as possible and that makes us go really fast. Stroke is feeling a bit rank heavy. So again. It feels so great to be on the water exercising and being with a this group that has grown to be some of my closest friends. Our first race, I believe, was 2022, and we have competed in the Austin Dragon Boat Festival, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, and we were in a race in Vancouver in June, which was our biggest race. There were 33 breast cancer survivor teams, and we got third place overall. So exciting.
Mike Lee [00:15:30] What did it feel like to see that many other people who have gone through this?
Beth Rowan [00:15:35] It’s powerful. But another thing that’s even more powerful is typically when there’s breast cancer teams in a dragon boat race, we will take a break to honor and remember the breast cancer folks that have passed on. And so in Vancouver we had two heats of breast cancer survivor boats lined up together, raft up, so connect, hold on to each other, and we have pink carnations. Somebody usually sp speaks some words or some music and then we throw the pink carnations into the water, remembering those that have passed on. It is very powerful. It really is.
Mike Lee [00:16:21] I would think that there’s an element that’s a little bittersweet to see that many people who have had to go through this. It is. But to also see that many people who survived and are thriving now.
Beth Rowan [00:16:33] Yes, it is. I mean it is t bittersweet is the exact right word because I mean, you know, I’m talking about how upbeat it is, but we do remember those and we have had people on our team that have passed on. But we do feel like it is one of the best things we can do to stay connected and stay strong and to stay together. Oh
Mike Lee [00:17:02] When you started doing this six years or so ago, did you think it would be this big a part of your life?
Beth Rowan [00:17:07] Oh, I had no idea. I had no idea that it would be such a focus for me. Definitely had no idea that these women that I didn’t know I would come to just love, you know, they’re some of my closest friends and that I’m out there practicing absolutely as much as I can. I would ha I hate missing a practice ’cause it just brings joy and energy to me. But to imagine that I would have this connection, I had no idea.
Mike Lee [00:17:40] Did it originally just feel like like an exercise, something that, you know, you should do and it’d be good for you, but then the emotional connection came as a little bit of a surprise?
Beth Rowan [00:17:49] Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you know, working out feels good, but working out with women that I’m totally connected and we’re in sync paddling and I know that they have my back. Like if something comes up with anybody on our team, we’re there for each other. You know, we have each other’s back in all ways. And so that has been so fulfilling for me. That community is just really wonderful.
Mike Lee [00:18:21] And I’m guessing you didn’t realize you were going to be given that gift.
Beth Rowan [00:18:24] Absolutely, absolutely. I would never say that having breast cancer would be a gift, but I would definitely say that this team is the silver lining for sure. It’s special.
Mike Lee [00:18:39] These are probably women that you you might not have a lot else in common with or you might not have run across in your in your normal day to day life. Yeah. But you have two things that that really connect you the love of the sport and having gone through a similar experience.
Beth Rowan [00:18:54] Yes.
Mike Lee [00:18:55] And maybe the other stuff doesn’t matter so much.
Beth Rowan [00:18:58] Yeah, that’s true. The connection is the most important thing and definitely, you know, we have grown close during, you know, practices, races, the traveling that we’ve done together and we have like this amazing bond now.
Mike Lee [00:19:17] D you feel like you’re gonna keep doing this for a long time?
Beth Rowan [00:19:19] Oh yeah, absolutely. For the rest of my life. And if I was ever to move anywhere else, the very first thing I’d want to do is find a dragon boat team. And if I couldn’t find a team, I would do everything I could to start one. I mean, it’s really that powerful.
Mike Lee [00:19:34] So you’re not gonna move anywhere where there’s not a river or a lake that you can
Beth Rowan [00:19:39] It’s really fun. We had of a team member who came from the Pacific Northwest and she said there were so many teams up in Portland area. And there’s many teams in Canada, believe it or not. Lots of teams in Florida and in the Northeast, there’s teams. There’s a team in Dallas, Houston. They have a big race in Arizona every year. So it’s growing. And you know, there’s teams in France and Italy and New Zealand. And so it’s worldwide and growing. Remember to breathe. We had an exciting thing in Vancouver. Oh tell me. One of our our drummer who was there for the first day, she had to leave and so her to take her son to a summer camp. So we were short one person, and for a race it’s mandated that you have to have a drummer. So the next race we were in the next day, we were short. We had to move one of our paddlers to drumming. So we had nineteen paddlers instead of twenty. And in that race, previously we had come in first in two races, and then that one where we were short a paddler, we came in sixth place. And so Luckily our manager realized that she could go talk to the race people and they had a steersperson that they could loan us for the race, so that meant we could move one of our paddlers back into the seat to paddle. So we had a temporary steersperson and all of our paddlers and our drummer and so in that one we came in third, which was so exciting.
Mike Lee [00:21:32] That really shows you how how important every person on that boat is. Yes. If I mean, if you’ve got twenty paddlers, a lay person might think, You could probably do without one and you’d be fine, right? Right. But obviously made a huge difference.
Beth Rowan [00:21:49] Huge difference. We went from first to sixth. So we really need every single one of our paddlers doing their best. One person, there’s just as important as everybody else on the team.
Mike Lee [00:22:01] Right. That’s a there’s a lesson in there somewhere, isn’t there?
Beth Rowan [00:22:04] Yeah.
Mike Lee [00:22:06] Long and strong. Reach into that front.
Beth Rowan [00:22:10] I’m sixty years old. So there aren’t that many opportunities for women of a certain age to do competitive team sports. So to have that chance and to feel the joy that we feel, it’s pretty dang exciting.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:28] To hear more from that episode, we have a link at K U T.org slash signal. Thank you to KUT’s Andrew Weber and to KUTX’s Maile Carballo. This is Austin Signal. We will talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
