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Deported ‘Dreamer’ brought back to U.S. by ICE and detained
Jose Contreras Diaz was told he was coming home. His family waited hours at a Texas airport. Instead, ICE sent him to a detention facility.HARLINGEN, Texas — Jose Contreras Diaz was heading home to Texas on Wednesday, months after being deported to Honduras by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in January. He came with the Trump administration’s assurance that he would be allowed to return to the U.S.
He thought he would be reunited with his family within hours. The reunion never came.
Contreras Diaz, a 30-year-old who entered the United States as a child and received protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, sent MS NOW a photo of himself smiling at the airport. “I’m on the runway waiting for the plane,” he texted. His last message: “Plane just got here. I gotta wait for everyone to get off then I’ll get on.”
But around 9:30 p.m., his attorney learned that immigration agents were transferring him to a detention facility. Lawyer Stacy Tolchin was first told he would be held at El Valle Detention Facility, then his detainee locator showed Port Isabel — almost an hour away.
“What are they doing, and what is the point of paroling somebody back on a chartered flight to detain them?” Tolchin said. “I’ve never had anybody brought back on a charter flight ever.”
Contreras Diaz is one of multiple “Dreamers” who have been arrested, detained or deported by the Trump administration. The Obama-era program known as DACA has long shielded from deportation hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. But the Trump administration contends that valid DACA status no longer protects a person from removal, and has publicly pressured Dreamers to self-deport.
Tolchin’s “biggest fear” is that ICE will hold Contreras Diaz until his active DACA status expires in June. “But his DACA shouldn’t run out, because he has a pending renewal,” she said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to questions about Contreras Diaz’s case. His lawyer is filing a habeas petition in federal court, with the Southern District of Texas challenging his detention Thursday.
It remains unclear why Contreras Diaz was transferred to a detention facility upon arriving back in the U.S., or why the administration brought him back at all after deporting him in January. He and his attorney were told he would be granted parole; in the days leading up to his flight, Contreras Diaz believed he would be released upon landing in Harlingen.
Tolchin had sent ICE a letter arguing that he was illegally deported, attaching a recent ruling by a federal judge in California ordering the return of Maria Estrada Juárez, another DACA recipient she represents. Within days, immigration agents notified Contreras Diaz that he would be allowed to return.
Deported ‘Dreamer’ brought back to U.S. by ICE and detained
Jose Contreras Diaz was told he was coming home. His family waited hours at a Texas airport. Instead, ICE sent him to a detention facility.
www.ms.now