Wrongly Deported DACA Recipient Returns Home To U.S. Following Judge’s Order
“I am grateful to the court for recognizing that what happened to me was wrong and for bringing me home,” said Maria de Jesus Estrada Juárez. “But no one should have to go through this.”
DACA recipient Maria de Jesus Estrada Juárez – the California mom who was wrongly deported by ICE this past February after following the rules by attending her green card appointment – is finally back home where she belongs.
The Sacramento Bee and advocates for the family were witnesses to Estrada Juárez’s emotional reunion with her daughter, Damaris Bello, as the pair embraced at the San Ysidro Port of Entry last week. “Estrada Juárez collapsed into her daughter’s embrace,” the report said. “For the next 20 minutes, they exchanged many tears but few words – just a flurry of hugs and kisses, trying to make up for the time apart.” Estrada Juárez – who lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years before her abrupt deportation – said she has no life “if she’s not with me.”
Estrada Juárez’s return “marks a monumental victory in the fight to uphold justice, due process, and the DACA program at a time when close to 300 DACA recipients have been detained and close to 90 deported that we know of,” the Home Is Here Coalition said in a statement.
“The move makes Estrada Juárez one of the few people to be allowed back into the country after a deportation during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to immigration experts,” The Sacramento Bee noted. “The government does not publish data on how often federal courts order such returns — and how often DHS complies.”
This nightmare that saw Estrada Juárez detained and deported over a 24-hour-period despite holding valid protections from deportation began when she arrived at her green card appointment with paperwork in hand only to be detained by plainclothes mass deportation agents. Bello – who is sponsoring her mom and helped her prepare for the appointment – could only watch in horror and disbelief as ICE took her mom away.
During a Washington, D.C. press event in the days that followed, Bello said she struggled to understand “how something like this can happen in a country that talks so much about fairness and justice.”
“My mom didn’t hurt anyone,” she told the world. “She showed up because she believed in the promise that if you follow the rules, things will work out. Instead, that trust was used against her. Now I wake up every day in Sacramento without my mom. I go through life pretending to be strong, but the truth is, I feel like a piece of my life has been ripped away.”
But hope for Estrada Juárez and Bello came in the form of a decisive court ruling finding that the mom “‘was removed in flagrant violation of the regulatory protections afforded to her under DACA’ and the Constitution’s Due Process Clause,” Mother Jones reported. “Upon her return, Petitioner shall be returned to the status quo, including that she shall be entitled to all the rights and benefits afforded to her by her DACA status as if her February 19, 2026 removal never occurred,” ordered U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins.
“This case makes clear that the government cannot ignore due process and basic legal protections,” attorney Stacy Tolchin told The Sacramento Bee. But that’s exactly what the federal government has been doing, by deporting close to 90 DACA recipients and detaining at least 261 others despite the fact that they hold protections issued by the same government singling them out. While Kristi Noem claimed in a Feb. 11 letter that hundreds had “criminal histories,” she provided no evidence to back that up.
Noem has since been fired and replaced with Markwayne Mullin, who served as Oklahoma’s junior senator until his confirmation late last month. However, mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller remains in charge, highlighting the risks that continue to face Dreamers like Maria de Jesus Estrada Juárez and U.S. military spouse Annie Ramos, who was abducted by ICE last week. While Ramos tried to apply for DACA in 2020, her application “was never processed by the Trump administration because the program was halted for new applicants,” The New York Times reports.
This cog in the mass deportation machinery had its intended result. When Ramos and husband, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank, traveled to a military office to finish moving into his new base in Louisiana, she instead ended up detained. The 22-year-old – who has no criminal record, teaches Sunday school, and was just months away from finishing up bachelor’s degree in biochemistry – is now at a detention camp. “I grew up here like any American,” she told The New York Times. “This is all I know. My husband and family are here.”
And Juan Chavez Velasco, who was also abducted despite holding valid DACA protections, remains separated from his newborn baby after attempting to deliver milk to her NICU unit last month. “Pulling a healthcare worker out of his job and separating him from his family during a medical crisis is inhumane, destabilizes families, weakens local economies, and once again displays the last thing this administration needs is tens of billions more for ICE and CBP, on top of the $150 billion they already have,” FWD.us said.
Chavez Velasco’s DACA status expired while in detention and the paperwork he sent in last year to continue his deportation protections for another two years went ignored despite the federal government’s claim it continues to process renewals.
“I feel betrayed,” he told MS Now. “I feel very sad and heartbroken because I would have thought that the Trump administration would be more compassionate towards people like me who contribute to the country and have basically lived here all our lives. I love this country. I love what I’ve been able to accomplish here.”
Stories like these are “why we will not let justice end with Maria’s story,” the Home Is Here Coalition continued.
“We will continue to fight to ensure Maria is able to stay with her family in the U.S., push for the immediate release and return of all other DACA recipients who have been wrongfully detained or deported, and demand a pathway to citizenship for the millions left vulnerable to violent anti-immigrant attacks. We hope that Maria and her family can begin to heal after surviving this trauma, and we carry her strength with us as we fight for justice and accountability for those who have not yet been able to see their loved ones again.”
“This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life. As a mother, being separated from my child like that—feeling helpless, not knowing if she was okay—broke my heart in a way I can’t fully describe,” Estrada Juárez said. “I am grateful to the court for recognizing that what happened to me was wrong and for bringing me home. But no one should have to go through this.”