State and local officials gathered in downtown Sacramento to demand the return of Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a mother who was deported last week under rare and potentially unlawful circumstances.
The Wednesday morning press conference followed reporting from The Sacramento Bee that highlighted Estrada Juarez’s removal occurred in under 24 hours and despite her having legal permission from the federal government to remain in the country. Estrada Juarez, 42, had lived in the state for 27 years and was detained at her green card appointment.
“Sacramento is better with Maria, here at work, in her home and with her family,” said state Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento. “This is unacceptable. This is un-American, and it is certainly not what California stands for.”
Estrada Juarez was a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that began during President Barack Obama’s administration that has shielded people from deportation if they arrived in the U.S. as children and have no criminal record. In response to questions from The Bee, DHS said DACA “does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”
Even so, President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda has only targeted a small fraction of the DACA recipients in the country.
ICE arrested 261 DACA beneficiaries and deported 86 of them from Jan. 1 to Nov. 19, 2025, according to a CBS News story published Wednesday afternoon. More than 500,000 people were enrolled in DACA as of last year.
The figures, obtained by CBS, are the first official statistics on how DACA recipients have been affected during Trump’s second term. They are an increase from the unofficial numbers collected by immigrant advocacy organizations like United We Dream that have tracked publicized reports of enforcement toward DACA recipients.
The organization was only aware of a handful of DACA beneficiaries being deported until Wednesday, said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, a spokesperson for United We Dream. Only one of those, until Estrada Juarez, had been publicized. The case involved a Missouri man who was allowed to return after a few weeks.
“(Maria’s) story wasn’t a surprise to us, but it’s, unfortunately, welcoming that we can finally say DACA recipients are being deported,” Macedo do Nascimento said.
Sacramento resident Damaris Bello, 22, kisses her mother’s cat, Tiger, on Friday as she prepares to depart to Mexico to help her recently deported mother. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com
Targeting people with DACA could be unlawful, multiple immigration lawyers and experts told The Bee.
The status is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion “to not pursue the removal of an individual,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency is also required to follow a process for terminating DACA, which Estrada Juarez said was not followed in her case.
Trump, who tried to end the program in his first term, has more recently said that he wants DACA recipients to stay.
“They’re supposed to not be deported so the fact that people have to worry about this is outrageous,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a national immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy organization.
At Wednesday’s press conference, state and local leaders stood in front of the John E. Moss Federal Building where Estrada Juarez was arrested and deported from just a week ago.
The Sacramento mother had arrived the morning of Feb. 18 with her daughter, Damaris Bello, for a legal residency interview. She was swiftly detained and deported to Mexico by the next day.
“We will continue to call out as a community for Maria to come home, and we will continue to say, no more people deserve to be treated this way, not in Sacramento, not in America,” said Assemblymember Maggie Krell, D-Sacramento.
Earlier this month, Krell filed a federal lawsuit demanding information on arrests that took place at the immigration court in the federal building. Such arrests occurred over several months last year as armed agents waited in the halls to detain people after they emerged from hearings.
Sacramento Councilmember Karina Talamantes, the daughter of immigrants, ended the press conference by reading a statement from Bello, who is helping her mother in Mexico.
“My mother has spent decades building a life here,” Talamantes read. “She worked hard, cared for her family and trusted a system that encouraged her to come forward and participate in the legal process. We did what families are told to do. We showed up.”
Sacramento resident Damaris Bello takes a phone call as she stands by suitcases on Friday filled with her mother’s belongings. Bello’s mother was deported on Wednesday after attending an immigration appointment to change her DACA status. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com
This story was originally published February 25, 2026 at 1:43 PM.
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Mathew Miranda is a political reporter for The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau, covering how decisions in Washington, D.C., affect the lives of Californians. He is a proud son of Salvadoran immigrants and earned degrees from Chico State and UC Berkeley.