“We’re trying to surprise everybody,” Little Soldier said Friday, while preparing for opening ceremonies that were later cancelled by rain. A memorial service will be held on Sunday morning.

Cynthia Hart-Button, the bull’s caretaker and the president of the Sacred World Peace Alliance, is tight-lipped about the animal’s exact arrival time because of transportation and security concerns. The organization claims to have a record 14 white buffalo on its sanctuary in central Oregon.

“It’s a sad tragedy,” she said of the calf’s death. “So, instead of them thinking that they lost their hope, we’re bringing their hope back in a different way.”

Hart-Button said she hopes the bull, named Chief Hiawatha, will produce another white calf for the Lakota Ranch. The bull will turn 7 on May 16.

She said Hiawatha has been like a guard dog, growling when someone comes near who “is not good in spirit.”

“I’m sending it down to protect not only the buffalo but to protect him (Arby Little Soldier) and his family,” Hart-Button said.

According to Lakota Sioux lore, the goddess of peace once appeared in the form of a white buffalo calf.

As a non-albino white buffalo, Lightning Medicine Cloud was revered by Native Americans. Thousands of people of all races attended a naming ceremony for the unusual calf last year, and Little Soldier called it the “hope of all nations.”

Little Soldier said he found the calf dead and skinned, a few feet away from where it was born a year ago. Little Soldier said the calf’s mother, which was found dead and skinned the next day, was poisoned. The calf’s father was struck and killed by lightning in April.

The Hunt County Sheriff’s Department and the Texas Rangers are investigating the calf’s death, and Little Soldier said the Bureau of Indian Affairs is also involved.

“We’re pushing for this to be a hate crime,” said Little Soldier, who wants lawmakers to offer some kind of protection for the white buffalo. There is also a reward that now exceeds $45,000.

Hart-Button said her organization doesn’t open its sanctuary up to the public because of safety concerns.

“We’ve been threatened, people have offered me millions of dollars for their heads and hides,” she said. “I’ve even been offered money for their meat. These are the rarest animals in the world.”

The peace organization’s bull may not carry the same spiritual significance, as Little Soldier said it was bred to be a white buffalo. But he said he’s grateful and excited for the gift.

“These buffaloes represent world peace, killing something that’s sacred is not what we’re supposed to be walking,” Hart-Button said. “We’re supposed to be walking towards peace, not going backwards.”

Little Soldier said he wants the buffalo’s killers to know they may have destroyed the animal, but not what he stood for. Little Soldier said he has received condolences and concerned calls from as far away as Australia, Europe and Canada.

“They’ve opened the doors to him being bigger than ever,” Little Soldier said.

___

Online:

Lakota Ranch website: http://www.lightningmedicinecloud.com/

The rural area where the storm struck was mainly ranch land, about 25 miles north of Amarillo and south of Dumas. Rainwater gushed across the parched land, washing dirt and then mud into the hail, pushing it all onto U.S. 287, Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas said.

“There were just piles of hail,” said Maribel Martinez with the Amarillo/Potter/Randall Office of Emergency Management. “Some of the cars were just buried in hail and people were trapped in their cars.”

The southbound lane of the highway, which was shut down around 5 p.m. Wednesday, finally reopened early Thursday morning, shortly after midnight though water remained on the road until around 5 a.m., said Paul Braun, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesman in Amarillo.

Emergency crews also got several swift-water rescue calls as the road was flooded in low-lying areas, she said. Rural fences and vehicles suffered hail damage but there were no reported injuries.

Braun said work crews stayed in roadside ditches Thursday afternoon diligently trying to break up the ice jams and debris that had fused together and prevented drainage.

“We’ve got five, 6-foot high icebergs along the roadway,” Braun said. “If we get another rainstorm it will flood again.”

But the National Weather Service said it’s starting to clear up and should be a sunny weekend.

“That’s a good thing since it will take a few days for that hail to melt,” said Andrew Moulton, an NWS meteorologist in Amarillo.

Immigration experts say that while cases of mistaken identity are rare, people can slip through the cracks, especially if they don’t have legal help or family members working on their behalf. But they say U.S. immigration authorities had the responsibility to determine if a person is a citizen.

“Often in these situations they have these group hearings where they tell everybody you’re going to be deported,” said Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University, who is an expert on immigration issues. “Everything is really quick, even if you understand English you wouldn’t understand what is going on. If she were in that situation as a 14-year-old she would be herded through like cattle and not have a chance to talk to the judge about her situation.”

Jakadrien was on a flight from Atlanta and would be in Dallas by evening, her mother, Johnisa Turner, told the Associated Press. She had said earlier that she planned to meet her daughter when she arrives in the city.

“Our day has been hectic, hers is, too,” Turner said. “Just as long as she makes it home, just as long as she gets here.”

Turner said she has “a gazillion questions” for Jakadrien. Federal and local officials may have plenty, as well.

The saga began when the teen ran away more than a year ago. Jakadrien’s family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990. It was unclear if she has been living under that name.

Houston police said in a statement that her name was run through a database to determine if she was wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement but the results were negative. She was then turned over to the Harris County jail and booked on the theft charge.

The county sheriff’s office said it ran her through the available databases and did the interviews necessary to establish her identity and immigration status in the country, with negative results. A sheriff’s office employee recommended that an immigration detainer be put on her, and upon her release from jail she was turned over to ICE.

U.S. immigration officials insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t a Colombian woman living illegally in the country.

An ICE official said the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process, in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.

Standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there, the ICE official said.

The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country’s government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia.

Jakadrien was issued travel documents at the request of U.S. officials using information they provided, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport.

The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving in that country, the ICE official said.

According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home” program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said.

“If she looked like an adult, and she told them she was a 21-year-old Colombian citizen, and she didn’t show up in their databases, this was inevitable,” said Albert Armendariz, an immigration attorney from El Paso.

Jakadrien’s family says they have no idea why she ended up in Colombia. Johnisa Turner said the girl is a U.S. citizen who was born in Dallas and was not fluent in Spanish. She said neither she nor the teen’s father had ties to Colombia. Jakadrien’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made.”

“She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn’t a kid?” Lorene Turner asked on Thursday.

Lorene Turner, a Dallas hairstylist, said she spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to track down Jakadrien.

Ultimately, the girl was found in Bogota by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and U.S. officials.

Dallas Police detective C’mon (pronounced Simone) Wingo, the detective in charge of the case, said she was contacted in August by the girl’s grandmother, who said Jakadrien had posted “kind of disturbing” messages on a Facebook account where she goes by yet another name.

Wingo said the girl was located in early November through her use of a computer to log into Facebook. Relatives were then put into contact with the U.S. embassy in Bogota to provide pictures and documents to prove Jakadrien’s identity.

Colombian officials said when the government discovered she was a U.S. citizen and a minor, it put her under the care of a welfare program.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the case was brought to the State Department’s attention in mid-December.

“We didn’t have any involvement at all in this case until it came to light that there may be a problem with an American minor in Colombia, and that — and then we became involved both with Colombian authorities and with folks in Dallas,” Nuland said.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School, said hundreds of U.S. citizens are wrongfully detained or deported each year.

“There are a variety of legitimate reasons why somebody might not appear to be a U.S. citizen at first glance.” he said. “It’s the duty of the U.S. federal immigration agency to make sure that we do not detain and deport U.S. citizens erroneously. And this, unfortunately happened in this case.”

___

Llorca reported from El Paso, Texas. Associated Press reporters Cesar Garcia in Bogota, Colombia, and Sandy Kozel and Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Immigration experts say that while cases of mistaken identity are rare, people can slip through the cracks, especially if they don’t have legal help or family members working on their behalf. But they say U.S. immigration authorities had the responsibility to determine if a person is a citizen.

“Often in these situations they have these group hearings where they tell everybody you’re going to be deported,” said Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University, who is an expert on immigration issues. “Everything is really quick, even if you understand English you wouldn’t understand what is going on. If she were in that situation as a 14-year-old she would be herded through like cattle and not have a chance to talk to the judge about her situation.”

Jakadrien was on a flight from Atlanta and would be in Dallas by evening, her mother, Johnisa Turner, told the Associated Press. She had said earlier that she planned to meet her daughter when she arrives in the city.

“Our day has been hectic, hers is, too,” Turner said. “Just as long as she makes it home, just as long as she gets here.”

Turner said she has “a gazillion questions” for Jakadrien. Federal and local officials may have plenty, as well.

The saga began when the teen ran away more than a year ago. Jakadrien’s family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990. It was unclear if she has been living under that name.

Houston police said in a statement that her name was run through a database to determine if she was wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement but the results were negative. She was then turned over to the Harris County jail and booked on the theft charge.

The county sheriff’s office said it ran her through the available databases and did the interviews necessary to establish her identity and immigration status in the country, with negative results. A sheriff’s office employee recommended that an immigration detainer be put on her, and upon her release from jail she was turned over to ICE.

U.S. immigration officials insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t a Colombian woman living illegally in the country.

An ICE official said the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process, in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.

Standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there, the ICE official said.

The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country’s government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia.

Jakadrien was issued travel documents at the request of the U.S. National Security Agency and with information submitted by U.S. officials, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport.

The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving in that country, the ICE official said.

According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home” program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said.

“If she looked like an adult, and she told them she was a 21-year-old Colombian citizen, and she didn’t show up in their databases, this was inevitable,” said Albert Armendariz, an immigration attorney from El Paso.

Jakadrien’s family says they have no idea why she ended up in Colombia. Johnisa Turner said the girl is a U.S. citizen who was born in Dallas and was not fluent in Spanish. She said neither she nor the teen’s father had ties to Colombia. Jakadrien’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made.”

“She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn’t a kid?” Lorene Turner asked on Thursday.

Lorene Turner, a Dallas hairstylist, said she spent a lot of time on the Internet trying to track down Jakadrien.

Ultimately, the girl was found in Bogota by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and U.S. officials.

Dallas Police detective C’mon (pronounced Simone) Wingo, the detective in charge of the case, said she was contacted in August by the girl’s grandmother, who said Jakadrien had posted “kind of disturbing” messages on a Facebook account where she goes by yet another name.

Wingo said the girl was located in early November through her use of a computer to log into Facebook. Relatives were then put into contact with the U.S. embassy in Bogota to provide pictures and documents to prove Jakadrien’s identity.

Colombian officials said when the government discovered she was a U.S. citizen and a minor, it put her under the care of a welfare program.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the case was brought to the State Department’s attention in mid-December.

“We didn’t have any involvement at all in this case until it came to light that there may be a problem with an American minor in Colombia, and that — and then we became involved both with Colombian authorities and with folks in Dallas,” Nuland said.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at Cornell Law School, said hundreds of U.S. citizens are wrongfully detained or deported each year.

“There are a variety of legitimate reasons why somebody might not appear to be a U.S. citizen at first glance.” he said. “It’s the duty of the U.S. federal immigration agency to make sure that we do not detain and deport U.S. citizens erroneously. And this, unfortunately happened in this case.”

___

Llorca reported from El Paso, Texas. Associated Press reporters Cesar Garcia in Bogota, Colombia, and Sandy Kozel and Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

The teen has become the center of an international mystery. Many facts of the case are still unclear, but U.S. and Colombia officials have pointed fingers over who is responsible for allowing a minor be deported to a country where she is not a citizen.

Jakadrien’s family has questioned why U.S. officials didn’t do more to verify her identify, while U.S. immigration officials insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t — as she claimed — a woman from Colombia illegally living in the U.S.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the case was brought to the State Department’s attention in mid-December.

“We didn’t have any involvement at all in this case until it came to light that there may be a problem with an American minor in Colombia, and that — and then we became involved both with Colombian authorities and with folks in Dallas,” Nuland said.

The teen, who ran away from home more than a year ago, was found in Bogota, Colombia, by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and U.S. officials.

According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home” program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said. When the Colombian government discovered she was a U.S. citizen and a minor, it put her under the care of a welfare program, the statement said.

The family says they have no idea why she ended up in Colombia. Johnisa Turner said Jakadrien is a U.S. citizen who was born in Dallas and was not fluent in Spanish. She said neither she nor the teen’s father had ties to Colombia. Jakadrien’s grandmother, Lorene Turner, called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made.”

“She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn’t a kid?” Lorene Turner asked on Thursday.

Jakadrien’s family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.

The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country’s government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia. The ICE official said standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there.

The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving there, the ICE official said.

The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Jakadrien was issued travel documents at the request of the U.S. National Security Agency and with information submitted by U.S. officials. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport.

It was not clear if the teen might be charged upon her return for falsifying her identity in a criminal process.

Dallas Police detective C’mon (pronounced Simone) Wingo, the detective in charge of the case, explained that in August she was contacted by the girl’s grandmother, who said Jakadrien had posted “kind of disturbing” messages on a Facebook account where she goes by yet another name.

Wingo said the girl was located in early November through her use of a computer to log into Facebook. Relatives were then put into contact with the U.S. embassy in Bogota to provide pictures and documents to prove Jakadrien’s identity.

Lorene Turner, the girl’s grandmother, said she has spent a lot of time tracking down Jakadrien.

“She didn’t have any reason to leave,” Lorene Turner said. “She lived in a nice home (with her mother and stepfather). We were very close. I don’t know why she left.”

___

Associated Press reporters Cesar Garcia in Bogota, Colombia, and Sandy Kozel and Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.