A deportation order for a woman involved in a discrimination lawsuit against the Frederick County Sheriff's Office has been stayed for one year, according to an immigrant advocacy group helping to defend her in the case.

Roxana Orellana Santos, 31, had been scheduled for deportation Sept. 30 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but that order has been stayed until Sept. 29, 2012, said Susana Flores, communication specialist with CASA de Maryland.

Orellana Santos, a native of El Salvador, is set to appear before a federal judge Nov. 3 in the lawsuit against the sheriff's office, said Jose Perez, a lawyer with LatinoJustice PRLDEF who is representing Orellana Santos.

Her lawyers protested the imminent deportation of Orellana Santos and three other women Sept. 21 in front of ICE offices in Washington. They argued the women should be granted relief under an Obama administration announcement that it would review cases of people in removal proceedings under certain circumstances, including for parents of children who are U.S. citizens and defenders of civil rights. Orellana-Santos has a 4-year-old son and is the plaintiff in a civil rights case.

Discrimination lawsuit

The id="mce_marker" million federal lawsuit stems from Oct. 7, 2008, when sheriff's deputies detained Orellana Santos near Evergreen Square on Buckeystown Pike and transferred her to the custody of ICE authorities.

Orellana Santos' lawyers have said she was eating lunch when two sheriff's deputies who saw her stopped their car and questioned her about her immigration status, even though she had broken no laws.

Sheriff Chuck Jenkins has said Orellana Santos tried to hide from the deputies, which prompted a request for her identification. The deputies then learned Orellana Santos was wanted by ICE on a deportation warrant, Jenkins has said.

Perez and Orellana Santos' CASA lawyers have said the deputies, encouraged by a 287(g) agreement between the sheriff's office and ICE that allows local deputies to enforce some parts of federal immigration law, overstepped their authority and improperly detained her because of her race and ethnicity, in violation of her Fourth and 14th amendment constitutional rights.

Jenkins has said the claims in the lawsuit are baseless and described it as frivolous. He has also said Orellana Santos' detention was not related to the 287(g), but was a routine handling of an arrest warrant.

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