Grace Calero and her 19-year-old daughter, Giulianna Carriel, boarded a flight to Ecuador on August 25, five days after Polk County deputies arrested them on federal ICE detainers inside a Kissimmee hospital room where Carriel, wearing only a hospital gown, was still being treated after a car crash. Calero, 39, signed a voluntary departure order rather than fight her case from jail, a decision she says she made because her daughter had epilepsy and could not be left to face detention alone.
The crash happened on August 20 in Poinciana, when another vehicle struck Calero's car on the passenger side and sent it rolling four times, according to The Guardian. Both women were taken by ambulance to HCA Florida Poinciana Hospital in Kissimmee, where Calero was placed in a neck brace and questioned by law enforcement. As WFTV reports, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said deputies went to the hospital to speak with the crash occupants, and the investigation revealed the women had overstayed their visas.
A Seizure During the Arrest
Carriel suffered a seizure while deputies were inside her hospital room, according to the same WFTV account, before deputies took both women into custody once they were discharged and transported them to Polk County Jail. The sheriff's office said the driver of the other vehicle involved in the crash was also in the country illegally from Ecuador, having overstayed an expired visa by several years, though officials have not said whether that driver was cited or charged in the collision itself. The sheriff's office also confirmed that Calero and Carriel had no criminal history and faced no state charges tied to the crash or any other incident.
Family cousin Jonathan Bravo wrote on a GoFundMe campaign that Calero had filed Form I-589 for asylum and held an active employment authorization document and Social Security number, with her daughter included under that claim through documentation valid into 2030, according to Newsweek. Calero told WFTV she had a Florida driver's license and had waited three years in Florida for an interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services after she and her daughter left Ecuador in 2023. Her pending asylum claim had allowed the pair to remain in the country while it was processed.
Hospital Says It Had No Choice
HCA Florida Poinciana Hospital said in a statement that its mission is to provide emergency care regardless of immigration status, but that hospitals are legally required to comply with verified law enforcement officers who enter their facilities, per WFTV's earlier coverage of the viral incident, in which hospital staff had questioned deputies' paperwork before the arrest proceeded. That encounter was only possible because federal guidelines updated in 2025 rolled back Biden-era “sensitive location” protections that had previously restricted immigration arrests inside hospitals and clinics, according to Ground News reporting on the policy shift.
Family attorney Phillip Arroyo said it was contradictory for Florida and ICE to call the women illegal, according to the WFTV report. Calero has said she would have stayed and fought her case if her daughter had not also been jailed, but made the decision to leave with her daughter's health in mind. She told the station she is now unsure what comes next for her and her daughter, and that she feels confined inside her Ecuador home because she fears what could happen to them there.
The Threats They Fled
Calero and Carriel say they received threats before originally leaving Ecuador, and worry someone there may still act on them now that they've returned to the country they fled. Calero said her life changed after someone else crashed into her car years earlier, and the family is now receiving treatment in Ecuador for injuries from this month's crash. An estimated 357,000 Ecuadorians were living in irregular migration status in the U.S. by 2026 amid escalating cartel violence and internal displacement back home, according to research from USCRI, with U.S. border encounters involving Ecuadorian nationals reaching 124,023 in 2024.
Legal experts note that a pending asylum application and an employment authorization document do not amount to formal lawful status, leaving visa overstayers exposed to ICE detainers regardless of how long their case has been active, according to analysis from the Modern Law Group. That vulnerability is amplified in Polk County, where all 67 Florida sheriffs signed 287(g) agreements with ICE in early 2025, making Florida the first state with full county-jail participation in the program, per the Florida Sheriffs Association.
Routine Questioning, Statewide Policy
Legal analysis of Polk County's 287(g) task force model shows deputies routinely ask crash victims and drivers about their birthplace and immigration status during ordinary traffic investigations, according to Ilabaca Law. The Polk County Sheriff's Office requested more than $1 million from Florida's State Board of Immigration Enforcement in late 2025 to cover detention beds and deputy overtime tied to the program, the largest request among Tampa Bay-area agencies, according to WTSP.
Hoodline has previously reported on Polk County's use of 287(g) detainers following a DUI crash arrest, and in cases involving a Lakeland burglary charge and a Davenport police chase, each ending in a federal immigration hold layered atop a local case. Calero and Carriel's case differs in that neither woman was accused of any crime tied to the crash that put them in the hospital in the first place.
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