SACRAMENTO — Natomas resident Maria Estrada Jesus arrived at the John Moss Federal Building for what she believed would be a routine green card appointment.

Within hours, she was allegedly placed in shackles, denied her diabetes medication, and deported to Mexico.

“They told me to stand up and turn around, put your hands behind your back. You are ordered to be immediately removed from the United States,” Maria Estrada Jesus previously told Fox40. “My whole entire world collapsed.”

One week later, state and local leaders gathered at the federal building to demand her safe and prompt return.

She came to the U.S. as a teenager nearly 30 years ago under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, but the Department of Homeland Security says she was deported due to a removal order from when she was 15.

Sacramento Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes read a message from Jesus’s daughter, who is now old enough to sponsor her mother.

“Those protections gave our family a sense of security, the belief that if we followed the rules and trusted the process, we would be treated fairly, so when we walked into her immigration appointment, we walked in with hope. Instead, I watched my mother be taken away.”

Her niece said she managed a city-contracted motel providing services to homeless residents.

“We expected her to come home — instead, we came home and it was it wasn’t a home, because the home is where your loved ones are,” her niece told Fox40. “They chained her from her waist, from her feet, from her arms, as if she was a criminal.”

Assemblymember Maggy Krell filed a lawsuit against federal immigration authorities seeking greater transparency.

“Her due process rights were violated, her arrest was likely unlawful,” Assemblymember Maggy Krell told reporters.

Senator Angelique Ashby called the arrest and deportation unconstitutional.

“When the federal government tells you they are rounding up criminals, I ask you, where is the crime in being a DACA recipient, a mom,” the California senator told reporters.

Talamantes said this deportation leaves other DACA dreamers with distrust.

“Trump, you said you were only going after the criminals — she’s not a criminal — she did everything by the books,” the Sacramento Vice Mayor told FOX40.

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