DACA recipient Jessica Trevino sues US after deportation to Mexico

Summary

A Texas mother who was deported to Mexico despite having permission to stay in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, programme has sued the federal government after it told her it would end that permission over “unauthorised travel” linked to her deportation. Rozas has asked the court to declare that her removal was unlawful, order the government to facilitate her return to the US, and allow her DACA status to remain valid. “The government had no lawful basis to remove her, and we filed this petition to demand she be brought back home,” he said. Their three children, all US citizens, are staying with family on the US side near the border. As a DACA recipient, she must keep a clean criminal record and cannot travel outside the United States. DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) had not responded to a request for comment as of Thursday afternoon. An immigration judge under the Justice Department had issued a voluntary departure order for Trevino in February while she was in ICE (immigration enforcement agency) custody, but a valid DACA status prevents the Department of Homeland Security from deporting her. “I would be so blessed to be able to go back home, because that’s what I long for most right now. According to a DHS letter sent in February to Democratic Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the current Trump administration has deported 86 DACA recipients and arrested 241 others. Advocates for DACA recipients say Trevino’s case is part of a wider pattern. “This is what a deliberate, systematic effort to destroy DACA looks like in practice: target recipients one by one, manufacture justifications after the fact, and leave their children to grow up without them,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a policy organisation that defends immigration rights. The lawsuit centres on Trevino’s claim that she was deported despite holding valid DACA protection, and now faces losing that protection because of the very removal she is challenging, while her children remain in the US without her.