Food Driver Deported After McDonald’s Delivery Goes Wrong
The Venezuelan man made a wrong turn into Canada from Detroit and when he tried to re-enter, was sent to El Salvador.
The Washington Post via Getty
A food delivery driver was deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison after he made a wrong turn into Canada from Detroit.
The Detroit Free Press reported that Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a 32-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, was attempting to complete a McDonald’s delivery in January when he made a grave mistake navigating the U.S.-Canadian border.
Prada ended up crossing the Ambassador Bridge into Canada. When he attempted to re-enter the United States, he was apprehended by authorities. According to The New York Times, Prada had been in the country for only a few months. It is unclear which delivery app he was working for at the time.
Signs notify drivers at the US-Canada Ambassador Bridge border crossing in Detroit, Michigan.
DOMINIC GWINN/ Middle East Images/AFP via Gett
Prada’s whereabouts were reportedly unknown for days due to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials holding him and other immigrants in detention centers across the country for extended periods.
“What we’re seeing is one wrong turn at the Detroit bridge—the Ambassador Bridge—can result in your loved one disappearing,” said Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s Christine Sauve in a statement to the Free Press. She added, “And that shouldn’t be the case.”
Prada’s case adds to an intensifying war between the federal courts and the Trump administration, which has refused to return wrongly deported man Maryland Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S.—even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that the administration must facilitate his return from El Salvador.
President Donald Trump and his cabinet officials have alleged on several occasions that Abrego is a gang member and would not be brought back to America, despite admitting that he was deported in an “administrative error.”
Abrego’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post that she was forced to go into hiding after the Department of Homeland Security posted a 2021 protective order of Abrego’s that featured her address.
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“I don’t feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives,” said Vasquez, who shares three kids with Abrego. “So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I’m scared for my kids.”
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