A Maryland woman who spoke publicly about her husband’s death in ICE custody has been placed in deportation proceedings, according to documents shared with The Washington Post. Veronica Ramirez received media attention this month after her husband, Julian Curo Churata, died in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. Curo Churata, originally from Peru, had lived in the United States for more than a decade before he was detained by immigration officers in June. He died Sept. 29. Hospital records showed Curo Churata died of cardiac arrest due to septic shock. ICE officials said guards found him in “medical distress” and took him to the hospital just after 8 p.m. Medical reports show the hospital, a seven-minute drive away, did not record Curo Churata arriving until 10:26 p.m. In a story that ran on the front page of The Post earlier this month, Ramirez said that ICE officials had yet to provide the family any details of what happened to her husband. ... On Friday, Ramirez’s attorney said she received a notice that deportation proceedings had been initiated against her. The notice is dated three days after the article was published online, according to the copy. The document states that Ramirez, who is from El Salvador, is an “alien present in the United States who has not been admitted or paroled” and orders her to report to an immigration court for a hearing next month. In a statement provided by her attorney, Ramirez said she’s “so afraid. ICE has already taken my daughter’s father, my husband, Julian, away from her. He died while in their custody. Now, I am terrified that they might try to separate her from me as well.” Ramirez and Curo-Churata had shared a home in Prince George’s County with their 6-year-old daughter and Ramirez’s son. Curo Churata also had an older son from a previous relationship. During his months in detention, Curo Churata would call every day, Ramirez said, to reassure her that he was staying safe and tell his kids that he missed them. The couple had agreed not to tell their daughter about his detention, so Curo Churata, a carpenter by trade, would tell her that he was helping build a beautiful house far away. “She would say, ‘Dad, why don’t you finish that job? That job is awful, they won’t let you come back to us,’” Ramirez recalled. “He would tell her, ‘No, my love, I’m almost finished, and then I’ll be able to come home and be with you.’” After her husband’s death, Ramirez said she saw her daughter, once a happy and energetic child, become withdrawn. “She’s afraid - afraid of being alone,” Ramirez said. ... Max Schoening, Ramirez’s lawyer, said the ICE notice was “clear retaliation” for speaking out. Schoening said Ramirez had applied for asylum when she entered the U.S. in 2018. That claim was rejected in 2023, he said, but ICE has not had contact with her since then. “All of a sudden, when she speaks out about her husband’s death in ICE custody and seeking accountability and truth about what happened, they’re retaliating by trying to deport her and separate her from her kids,” Schoening said.