USCs Deported

A new article from USA Today shines a spotlight the issue of U.S. citizens caught up in immigration enforcement through the story of Brian José Morales García.

Morales García was born in Denver, CO. Before he was two, his family relocated to Mexico, where he stayed for two decades. Morales García ultimately returned to the U.S. in January 2025, through a valid port of entry, by showing his U.S. birth certificate.

In April 2025, Morales García was detained by state troopers and remanded to ICE (despite explaining he was a U.S. citizen). The troopers had stopped the car Morales García was riding in for a window tint violation that did not result in a citation.

(SIDE NOTE: If you haven't yet read Kevin Johnson's amazing piece Racial Profiling in the War on Drugs Meets the Immigration Removal Process: The Case of Moncrieffe v. Holder, 92 Denv. U. L. Rev. 701 (2015), go ahead and read it now. You'll never look at a tint-violation-pullover the same again.)

Back to Morales García. He repeatedly told officers that he was a U.S. citizen. But, "agents ridiculed his repeated claims that he was American and warned that, if he continued making them, he could face as many as five years in prison.... he believed that he was going to either sign the paperwork they told him to sign or go to jail for years." So he signed. And got deported to Mexico.

Attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Morales García. After four months in Mexico, he was finally allowed to return to the U.S.. He worries that he will be caught up in another traffic stop. That's hardly an unfounded fear as U.S. citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas learned when he was arrested twice in California construction site raids.

Oh, but, hold up. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told reporters: "ICE does NOT arrest or deport U.S. citizens... Any U.S. citizens arrested are because of obstructing or assaulting law enforcement." 

Good Lord.