\u201cIt sounds like this poor woman was basically railroaded out of the country in the dead of night with barely a whimper,\u201d said Kevin Johnson, the former dean of UC Davis\u2019 School of Law and a legal leader in immigration law.<\/p>\n
Estrada Juarez is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that began under President Barack Obama\u2019s administration that has shielded people from deportation if they arrived in the U.S. as children and have not been convicted of a crime. In 2014, the federal government also granted her permission to leave and re-enter the country to visit a sick family member in Mexico.<\/p>\n
Last year, after her daughter turned 21 \u2014 the minimum age at which a U.S. citizen can sponsor a parent \u2014 Estrada Juarez applied for lawful permanent residency, or a green card. She has no criminal history and is a regional manager for Motel 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to do things the right way,\u201d said her daughter Damaris Bello, who also attended Wednesday\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n
During the appointment, Estrada Juarez and her daughter said immigration agents cited a prior expedited removal order issued in 1998 when she entered the country alone at 15. Estrada Juarez said she was unaware of the order and would have not applied for permanent residency or attended the appointment if she had known about it.<\/p>\n
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, in a written statement on Sunday, said \u201cDACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country\u201d and encouraged those with the status to self-deport. She added that Estrada Juarez received \u201cfull due process,\u201d was previously issued \u201ca final order of removal from a judge\u201d in 1998 and \u201cillegally re-entered\u201d the U.S.<\/p>\n
Estrada Juarez denied ever standing in front of a judge or receiving an order of removal.<\/p>\n
DHS did not respond to follow up questions attempting to clarify the discrepancy, including a request for documentation of the removal order. A search of Estrada\u2019s Juarez\u2019s record in a federal immigration database did not garner any results. The Sacramento Bee reviewed her available immigration documents, including DACA renewals, her legal residency application and a previous approval to re-enter the country.<\/p>\n
DACA recipients, at least publicly, have largely avoided the brunt of the Trump administration\u2019s anti-immigration agenda. The president, who tried to end the program in his first term, has more recently said he would seek ways to spare these immigrants from deportation.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Home is Here campaign \u2014 a coalition to protect DACA recipients \u2014 documented 65 cases of detentions by immigration agents nationwide.<\/a> Deportations of people with the status, particularly without due process, are less common. One DACA recipient deported last year returned to the country weeks later.<\/p>\n Per USCIS\u2019s own definition, DACA is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion \u201cto not pursue the removal of an individual.\u201d The agency is also required to follow a process for terminating DACA that includes a \u201cnotice of intent to terminate\u201d and \u201can opportunity to respond,\u201d according to federal regulations.<\/a> DHS did not respond to a question asking why this process was not followed.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is mandatory by a clear and unambiguous reading of the regulations,\u201d said Sacramento immigration attorney Brian Lopez.<\/p>\n \u2018Person with determination\u2019<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez was born in Atlixco, a city in the Mexican state of Puebla. She spent much of childhood helping her mother work a fruit stand and her grandparents in the fields.<\/p>\n At 15, she decided to leave her hometown and travel to Southern California where some of her family had immigrated.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been a person with determination,\u201d Estrada Juarez said.<\/p>\n She arranged her travel with a coyote, people who escort immigrants across the border and often control every part of the journey, including when people eat, sleep and what they do and say.<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez said she arrived at the border in December 1998. What happened next could have led to her deportation 27 years later, Lopez said.<\/p>\n On her first time trying to cross the border, she was stopped by a federal agent and detained for roughly a few hours. Estrada Juarez recalled the agent asking a few questions and then letting her go. She remembers no mention of an expedited removal, an order issued by immigration officers that allows for a fast-track deportation without a court hearing.<\/p>\n Soon after, she reconnected with the coyote. They crossed the border successfully a few days later.<\/p>\n Lopez said expedited removals are a permanent mark on an individual\u2019s immigration record, except in rare circumstances.<\/p>\n The order, which carries a five-year bar on re-entry, is often up to the discretion of the federal immigration agent at the border. In other instances, Lopez said agents will issue a voluntary return which sends the person to Mexico but comes with no legal punishment.<\/p>\n Lopez said it\u2019s common that people are unaware that they have been given expedited removal orders. These conversations are sometimes not explained well or completed in a language that the immigrants are not fluent in, Lopez added.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could be that it was done, and she just didn\u2019t understand what was going on, especially given her age, or it wasn\u2019t explained to her,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez initially planned to return to Mexico. Then, she began working.<\/p>\n She secured jobs at a Los Angeles swap meet, a pizzeria and a 7-Eleven. Most years, she worked multiple jobs at the same time.<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez said she soon realized that the U.S. offered \u201copportunities for every type of person\u201d as long as they took advantage of them. She decided that the country offered her the best chance to succeed in life.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Mexico, you will be born poor and always be poor,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the United States, you can have a decent life.\u201d<\/p>\n At 20, Estrada Juarez gave birth to her only daughter. In 2005, the two moved to Sacramento where again she picked up several jobs \u2014 from a gas station cashier to auto insurance seller. She now helps manage multiple motels in California and Oregon.<\/p>\n \u2018Immigration history is clearly available\u2019<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez was granted DACA in 2014, two years after the program launched. It intended to protect undocumented children, often referred to as Dreamers, who arrived in the country before turning 16 and prior to 2007. Recipients must renew the status every two years. Participation in the program comes with a range of benefits including authorization to remain in the country, work permits and health insurance from employers who offer it.<\/p>\n Trump has provided mixed messaging on the program over the years.<\/p>\n He moved to revoke the program just months after taking office in 2016 \u2014 a decision that faced immediate pushback with several states, including California, suing over the directive. As of 2023, roughly 160,000 DACA recipients lived in California, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute.<\/a><\/p>\n The case made its way to the Supreme Court. In 2019, the court sided with DACA recipients and found that the Trump administration failed to provide a reasoned explanation for ending the program.<\/p>\n More recently, Trump has been publicly supportive of the program. A poll in 2020 showed nearly 75% of Americans support<\/a> providing a legal status to undocumented immigrants who arrived to the country as children.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many cases, they become successful,\u201d Trump said in December 2024 on NBC\u2019s Meet The Press.<\/a> \u201cThey have great jobs. In some cases, they have small businesses, in some cases they might have large businesses. And we\u2019re going to have to do something with them.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if he wanted DACA recipients to stay, Trump said \u201cI do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be able to work something out,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s comments, C\u00e9sar Cuauth\u00e9moc Garc\u00eda Hern\u00e1ndez, an immigration law professor at Ohio State University, said the administration remains hostile to DACA and other immigrants seeking legal pathways. He noted that this administration has ended several protections previously given to migrants and arrested people attending routine immigration check-ins across the country.<\/a><\/p>\n Immigration arrests and deportations have surged under Trump\u2019s second term, with ICE on track to deport nearly 13,000 people from California by the<\/a> end of 2025. Detentions have also spiked nationally.<\/a> About 74% of those have no criminal conviction, according to Syracuse University\u2019s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.<\/p>\n \u201cDACA is yet another example in which the Trump administration is quite clear that they\u2019re not only concerned about people who are violating immigration law,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re concerned about migrants, generally.\u201d<\/p>\n For her part, Estrada Juarez has renewed her DACA five times. She used the status in 2014 to request advance parole, a USCIS-issued travel document that allows foreigners to leave and re-enter the country. Estrada Juarez visited her mother who was recovering from surgery for three weeks before returning through a border checkpoint where she said no official mentioned her expedited removal order.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about an expedited removal that occurred in the computer age, so that immigration history is clearly available to DHS… The reason for that as a legal matter is that people rely on promises that the government makes,\u201d Garc\u00eda Hern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n Last April, Estrada Juarez applied for her legal residency in part for the desire to travel more with daughter. The two had hoped to plan a trip to Vatican City in Italy following the issuance of her green card. They received notice of the appointment last month.<\/p>\n \u2018Never had a chance\u2019<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez woke up Wednesday feeling optimistic.<\/p>\n The nerves from the days prior had calmed after a conversation with Bello who assured her mother that she was a taxpaying resident without a criminal record who had already left the country once.<\/p>\n With that in mind, Estrada Juarez prepared for what she called an \u201cachievement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday calls for a good-looking woman,\u201d Estrada Juarez recalled thinking. She put on makeup for the first time in years and had her daughter pick out a formal outfit. Together, they arrived at the appointment at 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n The first few minutes of the interview went well, they recalled. At one point, an immigration official brought up an expedited removal order on her record. Estrada Juarez responded by saying she was unaware of the order.<\/p>\n At the end of the interview, the official handed her a form that stated \u201cUSCIS is unable to complete your case at this time. Your case is being continued until a final decision is made.\u201d The official then explained that the order would likely bar her from ever securing residency, but he would like to \u201cdouble check\u201d with his supervisor, Estrada and Bello said.<\/p>\n He left and, within minutes, three immigration agents arrived. They called her name and said she would be deported because of her expedited removal order.<\/p>\n The mother and daughter, both in tears, exchanged a quick hug before Estrada Juarez was taken away.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like truly she never had a chance, like she walked into this and deported herself,\u201d said Bello, who is attending Sierra College.<\/p>\n Bello, who said the experience left her feeling like she \u201ccouldn\u2019t breathe,\u201d headed outside the Capitol Mall building. Once there, a federal agent came to inform her that Estrada Juarez had requested Bello head to their house and return with clothing and her medication for diabetes.<\/p>\n Her van to Mexico would leave later that afternoon.<\/p>\n Johnson compared Estrada\u2019s Juarez swift removal to that of Kilmar Armando \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda, a Salvadoran man illegally deported last March in what was later called an administrative error. He came back to the country months later after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government must facilitate his return.<\/p>\n DACA recipients wrongfully deported have returned as well. In March, a DACA recipient in Missouri was allowed to return two weeks after he was deported.<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration seems to push the legal envelope whenever they get a chance,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n Estrada Juarez texted her daughter at 8:14 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, sweetheart,\u201d she wrote in Spanish. \u201cI\u2019ve arrived in Mexico. Don\u2019t call me. I\u2019ll call you. I can\u2019t use my phone where I\u2019m at right now. How are you?\u201d<\/p>\n Back at their Natomas home, Bello was still reeling from the day before. She woke up to traces of her mother everywhere.<\/p>\n The makeup Estrada Juarez had carefully applied for what she thought would be her crowning American achievement still sat on the bathroom counter. Her Wednesday morning pot of coffee remained on the stove.<\/p>\n In the living room, the walls were plastered with photos of the mother and daughter. One is from Bello\u2019s quincea\u00f1era and another was gifted by Estrada Juarez\u2019s on her 16th birthday. The frame reads \u201cMy dear Damaris, I love you to the moon and back.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 1:35 PM.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n