Epic ice rescue leads to ICE deportation in Straits of Mackinac

Editor's note: This story was produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you're able, WCMU encourages you to listen to the audio version of this story by clicking the LISTEN button above. This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Tina Sawyer: Right before a historic blizzard hit northern Michigan in mid-March, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued a snowmobiler that was stranded on an ice bridge in the Straits of Mackinac. Since then, as WCMU's Emma George-Griffin reports, the man was deported. With little information available to the public, George-Griffin looked further into the situation and joins me right now in the studio to talk about what she found.

So tell us, Emma, take us back to the day of the rescue. What happened?

Emma George-Griffin: Yeah, so a man was snowmobiling across the ice bridge that connects Mackinac Island to St. Ignace, like many residents in that area do, but weather on that day was extremely bad, and the snowmobiler got stranded on an ice flow. The Coast Guard cutter ship located the snowmobiler, and people went down on the ice, strapped him to a gurney, and he was pulled up onto the boat by rope.

They also used a giant crane to retrieve his snowmobile as well. The video of that rescue is online. It has thousands of views. People have watched it, but a few days later, the U.S. Border Patrol made a Facebook post saying they arrested, quote, an illegal alien from Spain with the help of the Coast Guard.

TS: So I understand the Mackinac Island Fire Department played a role in this rescue. Did you learn anything from their perspective?

EGG: That's right. The Mackinac Island Fire Chief, Jason St. Onge, just talked about the rescue on his podcast. He said the conditions out on the ice bridge that day were extremely unsafe like he wouldn't have even crossed the bridge that day. And he compared, you know, the whiteout conditions to driving during a blizzard. When there's a whiteout, you don't know what lane you're in, but worse.

Jason St. Onge: And once you're in it, there's not a lot you can do about it. You can't really turn around. follow your own tracks because you can't see your own tracks. You can't see anything.

EGG: St. Onge says the snowmobiler was using the ice bridge to get to work on the mainland that day. The snowmobiler's boss actually called the fire chief when he found out the man was lost and stranded on the ice.

So, St. Onge says he got a team together. They went to search for the stranded man on foot. And they were using kind of like a ping location from the man's cell phone to track him.

TS: But the fire department wasn't a part of the final rescue, right?

EGG: Yeah, that's right. Things went south pretty quickly. The fire chief says even though they trained for situations just like this, it was extremely difficult.

JSO: I don't say a needle in a haystack. I say we're looking for a needle in a pile of needles. And it has to be coordinated and communication has to be of the utmost.

EGG: That's where things went wrong. St. Onge says communication during this rescue was like a big game of telephone. The snowmobiler didn't speak English well, so he was communicating to his boss through a translator, and then his boss was talking to the fire chief. So it kind of made a dire situation that much more complicated.

TS: Sounds like it, yeah.

EGG: So during this massive game of telephone, they were trying to give the snowmobiler instructions to reach the fire department on the ice, but he ended up hitting open water.

JSO: If there's open water separating us from him, there's no way we're going to get to him. And so I immediately called over to the Coast Guard.

EGG: St. Onge said the the Coast Guard initially said they weren't going to send people out on the ice for this rescue, and we don't know why they changed their minds.

TS: And the big question is, how did this man go from being rescued then to being deported?

EGG: According to St. Onge, the Coast Guard asked the snowmobiler for proof of citizenship after they realized he didn't speak English, but neither the Coast Guard or border control actually confirmed that. On his podcast, St. Onge says the snowmobiler didn't have any ID and that's why he was deported. But like I said, we really don't know what led to that situation.

Courtesy

/

U.S. Border Control

TS: Wow. So Emma, you've gotten a lot of information here, but there seems like there are some unknowns, and I guess what are you still looking into to figure this out?

EGG: Yeah, Tina, there's a lot of unanswered questions. I got a lot of information from the fire chief's perspective on his podcast. I did make a public records request to Mackinac Island and I got information on the snowmobiler's boss. So I called him too, and he said he didn't want to talk about the situation. So he didn't confirm why his employee was out on the ice or if he asked him to come to the mainland for work or if he was just recreating.

But I would really like to know why the Coast Guard changed their minds on the rescue and if the snowmobiler's immigration status had anything to do with it. I called and emailed US Border Patrol, and so far they have not given me any more information. In the past year, we've seen US citizens and immigrants with valid documentation be deported. So I think that's why it's important to know the exact reasoning and proof for this and any other deportation.

TS: Emma, thank you so much for your reporting on this and keep digging and let us know more.

EGG: Thanks, Tina.