'It's a miracle': Utah girl stuck with father in Colombia gets visa, returns home

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Leandro Bermudez and his daughter Lucia, stranded for about two months in Colombia, returned to Utah after U.S. officials granted the girl a visa.
U.S. officials initially rejected the girl's visa request based on a pair of presidential orders aimed at terrorists and potential security risks.
The denial set off a lobbying campaign by the girl's family and friends.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah man and his young daughter, stranded for two months in Colombia after U.S. officials denied the girl's visa request, are back on U.S. soil.

"Very excited, happy. It's a miracle," said Leanys Bermudez, the aunt of Lucia Bermudez Prado and sister to the girl's father, Leandro Bermudez.

After weeks of lobbying lawmakers and others for help, Leandro Bermudez and Lucia, 7, unexpectedly received word last Tuesday that U.S. officials had reversed course and granted the girl a U.S. visa. She received the paperwork at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, the Colombian capital, on Thursday and they booked a flight back to Utah as soon as they could.

Late Friday morning, they arrived, entering the baggage claim area of Salt Lake City International Airport to the hugs and kisses of a handful of waiting family members. Lucia beamed brightly at the airport, ran between family members, including a younger brother, and made heart signs with her fingers.

"We're happy," said Bermudez, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Venezuela now living in Murray. Lucia's "very excited."

Lucia's case and the initial denial of her petition for a visa represented another facet of the crackdown on immigration by the administration of President Donald Trump. Bermudez had traveled with the girl to Colombia to get the visa as part of her efforts to secure U.S. residency, arriving March 8 for what they thought would be a quick visit.

She is originally from Venezuela, the same as her father, and had to travel outside the country from her home in Murray to complete the visa process, required in certain cases under U.S. law. The girl, a second-grader at American Preparatory Academy in West Valley City, entered the United States via Mexico in 2021 when she was 2 with her Venezuelan mother and had been granted temporary protected status at the time, according to family.

To their surprise, though, U.S. consular officials denied the girl's visa request, citing a pair of executive orders signed by Trump meant to prevent certain foreign nationals who pose a security threat from entering the country. Those originally from Venezuela and several other countries are singled out by the executive orders. But the lawyer assisting Bermudez and Lucia, Daniel Black, maintains that the orders shouldn't have applied to the girl variously because her father is a U.S. citizen and because she was in the United States when one of the proclamations took effect.

Whatever the legalities, Bermudez, Lucia and their supporters launched a campaign to pressure U.S. officials to grant her a visa, getting assistance from the offices of U.S. Sen. John Curtis and U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens, Republicans representing Utah. They secured around 100 letters of support from local Utah lawmakers, friends, classmates of Lucia, members of the soccer team of Lucia's older brothers and others, which they provided to federal officials.

Lucia Bermudez Prado, a Utah girl who was stuck in Colombia with her father, Leandro Bermudez, returned home on Friday after U.S. officials reversed an earlier decision to deny her a visa. They are pictured at Salt Lake City International Airport. (Photo: Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)

"I really appreciate all the help I got because I really believe that was one of the factors that figured in approval of the National Interest Exception," Bermudez said. Granting of the exception by federal officials ultimately enabled Lucia to get the visa, her dad said, and will pave the way to formal U.S. residency and U.S. citizenship.

Leanys Bermudez, who also lives in Murray, said she had helped lead the campaign for Lucia here in Utah. Every day, she and others would work the phones, send messages, and seek letters of support to help the cause.

Many others are stuck in Bogota in similar circumstances, she said, and she hopes Lucia's case sets a precedent that can help others. At any rate, she thinks her niece's youth helped her, noting that an older acquaintance in Bogota has been there for several months now and is also seeking a U.S. visa, so far without success.

Black, Lucia's lawyer, isn't quite sure what to make of federal officials' decision to grant the girl the National Interest Exception because they never explained their actions. He thinks the girl may be the first person ever to have received such an exception, contemplated in Trump's proclamations.

"This was the plan all along, for her to do this process. She just never should have spent over 60 days in Colombia. That was never part of the plan and shouldn't have happened," he said.

Looking ahead, Leandro Bermudez said he would take a quick breather before turning his focus back to his businesses, including a Taylorsville restaurant he operates, Sentir Zuliano. His older son has surgery next week, which has also weighed on him.

"Today I'm going to rest, tomorrow I'll go back to work," he said.

Lucia said she missed Utah, that she's glad to be back and that she'll be visiting her friends. Because she missed so much school, her dad worries she may have to repeat the second grade.

Looking further into the future, Bermudez said his older son may need to travel outside the United States to obtain a visa to regularize his immigration status. But after the experience with Lucia, he's going to put those efforts on pause, at least for now.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.