A judge ordered her return after a wrongful deportation. Now comes the hard part.
“I think a lot of people assume that the story ends when your loved one comes back. But that’s just the beginning of when the healing process starts.”
The "justices’ immigration histories span much of the American experience...In each case, these newcomers paved the way for a descendant to reach the privileged pinnacle of the country’s civic life. These nine men and women will now sit in judgment of citizenship for their fellow countrymen."
When the SCOTUS justices hear oral arguments over Trump’s effort to rewrite the Constitution and limit birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara tomorrow, they'll be considering arguments pushed by a handful of controversial legal scholars. @pemalevy.bsky.social and I unpacked their theories here:
Estrada Juarez went to Mexico City over the weekend to pray at the Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe then flew to Tijuana Sunday morning, before driving to the border today. Her parole authorization was approved, according to her lawyer. Her daughter Damaris Bello is waiting to reunite with her.
On March 23, a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Estrada Juarez's return within seven days, finding that she “was removed in flagrant violation of the regulatory protections afforded to her under DACA."
NEW: The government is holding Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Sacramento DACA-protected mother deported after her February green card interview, at the San Ysidro port of entry despite an approaching court-ordered deadline to bring her back to the United States, advocates and her legal team say.
“I followed the rules and trusted the process, and I just want to return to my family and rebuild my life.”
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Sacramento mother who was detained at her green card interview and deported to Mexico within 24 hours.
"What the government’s really trying to do here is muddy the waters enough so that we won’t notice that it is rewriting the clear text of the Constitution itself."
I talked to Cody Wofsy, ACLU lawyer in the SCOTUS birthright citizenship case, about Trump's push to upend the 14th Amendment.
On February 18, Damaris Bello accompanied her mother to a green card interview in downtown Sacramento.
By the next morning, Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez had been deported to Mexico, where she hasn't lived in 27 years and despite having valid DACA status.
The January letter shows the ICE areas of responsibility where the arrests of DACA recipients have taken place:
The office of Rep. Ramirez has reached out to DHS to clarify the inconsistency, saying in a March 4 letter that the "discrepancies between your two responses demonstrate gross incompetency or intentional misdirection."
I've also reached out to DHS for clarification.
The February letter shared with Sen. Durbin and first reported by CBS News stated that 261 DACA recipients had been arrested and 86 deported between January and November 2025.
(Note the distinction between recipients and applicants in the two letters.)
SCOOP: In a January letter to Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), DHS says 270 DACA recipients have been arrested from January to September 2025. In addition, 174 DACA applicants have been deported, according to ICE records.
Those numbers differ from what was shared with Sen. Dick Durbin in February.
Immigrants are successfully challenging the Trump administration's mass detention policy and winning release from ICE custody—thanks to a centuries-old legal principle and constitutional right. My latest for @motherjones.com:
Steven Tendo is a pastor and asylum seeker from Uganda who has survived unimaginable harm and persecution back home. He has been fighting his case for years and reporting to ICE regularly. Yesterday, he was taken into custody—days before a scheduled check-in—and moved from Vermont to New Hampshire.
“It’s not at all surprising that this is happening with these ICE [removal] officers being sent out to basically treat people terribly,” a one-time deputy chief counsel with the agency told me, anticipating more escalation of violence. My latest for @motherjones.com:
“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers,” Stephen Miller said in late 2023.
But as I wrote here before Trump's re-election, researchers estimated that large-scale deportations would result in fewer jobs for Americans, not more.
"We have voted. We have protested. We have been killed. We have been persecuted. We have been imprisoned. We have been tortured. We have done everything in our power to have a path to democracy—and we deserve that opportunity.”
Finally, in December, I reported on the fallout of the administration's crackdown on legal immigration following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC.
More to come in 2026.
In November, I also wrote about the Trump administration's active targeting of DACA recipients with valid protection for arrest, detention, and deportation.
For the November/December issue, I reported on a one-time prison town in Colorado that has gotten divided over potential plans to open an ICE detention center in their backyard.
In October, I followed up on my March piece about the US immigration courts with detailed accounts from fired immigration judges.
For the September/October issue of the magazine, I reported on Trump's attack on Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans and the largest de-legalization push in modern US history.
