{"id":459027,"date":"2026-09-10T05:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T05:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459027\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T05:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T05:18:08","slug":"judge-orders-deported-oceanside-dad-of-u-s-marine-to-be-immediately-returned-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459027\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders deported Oceanside dad of U.S. Marine to be \u2018immediately\u2019 returned \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge has ordered the immediate return of the father of a U.S. Marine who was detained at the gates of Camp Pendleton<\/a> last fall and deported to Mexico without a hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court cannot fathom more \u2018extreme circumstances\u2019 then [sic] an unlawful deportation without justification, notice, or any opportunity to be heard,\u201d the judge wrote in the 10-page order, adding that Esteban Rios Sosa \u201cshould not have been detained at all, much less removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rios Sosa and his wife Luisa Rodriguez have lived in Oceanside for decades. Last September, they were with their son Steve Rios, who\u2019s a Marine, trying to visit their daughter \u2013 who\u2019s married to a Marine \u2013 at Camp Pendleton. They were stopped at the gate and Rios Sosa and Rodriguez were detained, taken to the federal building in downtown San Diego and released with ankle monitors, told to come back a few weeks later to check in with ICE.<\/p>\n

When they returned to the federal building in early October, they were detained again. Federal agents led them away in handcuffs as Rios Sosa wore what his son said was his lucky shirt, a red T-shirt that reads \u201cProud Dad of a U.S. Marine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was taken to the Otay Mesa Detention Center and Rios Sosa was immediately deported to Mexico.<\/p>\n

But his attorney says both have pending U visa applications. In a court filing, Rios Sosa\u2019s attorney said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had notified them in 2024 that their applications were bona fide but could not be granted immediately because the agency had reached its cap on U visas for the year.<\/p>\n

As part of that process, Rios Sosa and Rodriguez were granted what\u2019s known as deferred action, which his attorney said serves as essentially protection from enforcement, as well as work authorization while they wait to make it through the backlog.<\/p>\n

Because of that deferred action, after about three weeks in detention, an immigration judge ordered Rodriguez released<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then in July, Rios Sosa sued the federal government<\/a>, arguing they violated his right to due process in deporting him without a chance to see an immigration judge. On Tuesday, a federal judge agreed, ordering his immediate return to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government made promises to Mr. Rios Sosa to not engage in this kind of arbitrary enforcement against him,\u201d said his attorney, Monika Langarica, the deputy legal director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. \u201cThe government\u2019s actions to renege on those promises, to break those promises, I think really resonated with a lot of people who take the government at its word and who believe the government when it says it’s not going to do a certain thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about Rios Sosa\u2019s case, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly alleged he is a violent criminal. Back in October, they said he was charged with\u00a0domestic violence<\/a> and aggravated assaulted with a deadly weapon. When reached for comment on the lawsuit, ICE in August called him by the incorrect name \u2013 Mauricio \u2013 and said he was \u201ccharged with inflicting corporal injury on spouse, assault with a deadly weapon, and damage of power lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rios Sosa has continually maintained those allegations are false. DHS has never provided evidence of those charges and Langarica said the government never filed anything related to those claims in court. ICE did not respond to request for comment on the judge\u2019s order for Rios Sosa\u2019s return.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the government has had many opportunities to make this right, and unfortunately, they didn’t do that,\u201d Langarica said.<\/p>\n

The judge also ordered the government to restore Rios Sosa\u2019s prior immigration status \u201cas if his October 2025 removal never occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

Langarica said she\u2019s working to get him back quickly, after being separated from his family for nearly a year and missing the birth of his grandson.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe and the family are just overjoyed,\u201d she said, \u201cand really, really ready to be back together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge has ordered the immediate return of the father of a U.S. Marine who was detained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2871,3282,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-459027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-ice","tag-oceanside","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459027","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=459027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}