If she had had a visa or green card she wouldn't have applied for political asylum.
She was here illegally.
The very thought that you should be allowed to apply for asylum from Columbia is stupid.
Actually, no. I know several Colombians who have been granted asylum. There is a civil war going on there, despite the situation in the big cities improving immensely since Uribe took over.
(Forgot to reply to this part.) No, she was not. She was originally here on a tourist visa, got an extension for that, considered filing for political asylum (and got entangled with the evil notario as a result), then she got a student visa from the college she started studying at, during which time she married the senator. The deportation order was solely a result of the paperwork filed by the notario -- it was a separate process in which she was deemed to be deportable because she failed to respond to the notices sent by USCIS. Deportation orders trump all, however -- usually.
Not really stupid.
Columbia has one of the longest-running political insurgencies in the world.