{"id":246279,"date":"2026-04-01T05:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/246279\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T05:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:43:09","slug":"sacramento-mom-returns-to-capital-region-after-deportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/246279\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento mom returns to capital region after deportation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, the Sacramento mother who returned to the U.S. Monday<\/a> after a federal judge found her deportation unlawful, will continue her legal fight against the government.<\/p>\n

Back in Sacramento Tuesday afternoon, Estrada Juarez said she has appealed the federal government\u2019s denial of her green application \u2014 the first step in what ultimately resulted in her deportation nearly six weeks ago.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI will not give up on my future or my family,\u201d she said, hours after flying back to the capital region.<\/p>\n

One day earlier, Estrada Juarez had walked through the pedestrian doorway<\/a> of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the border crossing between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego. She immediately embraced her daughter and best friend Damaris Bello, who had waited six hours on the U.S. side of the border.<\/p>\n

\"Maria Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a DACA recipient that was deported in February to Mexico, hugs her daughter Damaris Bello at Sacramento City Hall on Tuesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

The successful return makes Estrada Juarez one of the few people known to have been allowed back into the United States after a deportation during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, according to immigration experts.<\/p>\n

At a Tuesday afternoon news conference in Sacramento City Hall, the mother and daughter stood beside their attorney, immigration advocates and local lawmakers \u2014 many of whom were involved in a weeks-long effort to bring her home.<\/p>\n

The case drew widespread national attention given that Estrada Juarez<\/a> is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that has typically shielded people from deportation if they arrived in the U.S. as children and have no criminal record. Over the last year, the Trump administration has ramped up enforcement against people with the status.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought every single day,\u201d Bello, 22, said. \u201cWe fought to bring her home. We leaned on our community\u2026on everyone who stood with us and believed that what happened to my mom was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Bello had watched immigration agents arrest her mother at a routine green card appointment in downtown Sacramento. Estrada Juarez was deported to Mexico by the next morning.<\/p>\n

\"Maria Maria de Jesus Estrada sheds a tear as she recalls being separated from her daughter, Damaris Bello, as she speaks at a news conference with Bello at Sacramento City Hall on Tuesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

The potential of a return had seemed slim, until earlier this month when U.S. Eastern District Court Judge Dena Coggins ruled that the U.S. government must return Estrada Juarez in seven days<\/a>. Coggins called Estrada Juarez\u2019s removal a \u201cflagrant violation\u201d of her constitutional due process rights and protections under DACA. On Monday, the deadline, Immigration and Customs Enforcement granted her permission to reenter.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should be stuck dealing with the fallout of something like this,\u201d said her attorney Stacy Tolchin. \u201cThis case is not just about Maria. It shows how quickly things can go wrong, even for people who are doing everything right. It shows just why due process is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolchin will continue to represent Estrada Juarez in the coming months. They have appealed the green card denial, arguing that the decision was based on a 1998 removal order that was never finalized due to a lack of supervisory approval. At the time, Estrada Juarez was 15.<\/p>\n

Estrada Juarez has also applied for a DACA renewal, a process that has been delayed months for some immigrants under the Trump administration. The latest statistics estimate there are more than 500,000 DACA recipients in the country.<\/p>\n

Estrada Juarez first secured the status in 2013, and has been renewing every two years. Her current status expires at the end of April.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to concentrate on myself right now, but in the future, if I can help somebody, I will,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Maria Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez attends a news conference with her daughter Damaris at Sacramento City Hall on Tuesday. Estrada Juarez was able to return to the United States on Monday night after being in Mexico for 40 days. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

This story was originally published March 31, 2026 at 7:06 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Mathew Miranda<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Mathew Miranda is a political reporter for The Sacramento Bee\u2019s 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.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, the Sacramento mother who returned to the U.S. Monday after a federal judge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[45256,110087,110086,89660,121,123,84375,122],"class_list":["post-246279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-daca","tag-daca-renewal","tag-deportation-reversal","tag-maria-de-jesus-estrada-juarez","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-mother","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}