{"id":264096,"date":"2026-04-24T08:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/264096\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:10:14","slug":"ice-deported-man-to-mexico-who-says-hes-a-u-s-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/264096\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE deported man to Mexico who says he\u2019s a U.S. citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government detained and deported a 25-year-old man who says he\u2019s a U.S. citizen to Mexico earlier this month, after police stopped the vehicle he was riding in near Fredericksburg, then called immigration authorities when he couldn\u2019t immediately provide identification or proof of citizenship.<\/p>\n

Brian Jos\u00e9 Morales Garc\u00eda, who says he was born in Denver but grew up in Mexico, was living and working in Texas at the time of his arrest. In an interview with The Texas Tribune, he said he repeatedly told police and immigration agents that he was a U.S. citizen and that he had a copy of his birth certificate and his Social Security card at home in Austin that he could show them, but was denied the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Still, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is disputing that he is a U.S. citizen and claims he admitted to entering the country illegally. <\/p>\n

Morales, who doesn\u2019t speak English and has dual citizenship in Mexico, was booked into the Gillespie County Jail before U.S. Border Patrol agents took custody of him.<\/p>\n

He was held for five days and said he feared being detained for months, so he decided to sign documents agreeing to a quick deportation so he could rejoin his wife and newborn daughter, who live in Mexico. <\/p>\n

\u201cEventually I told them what they wanted to hear because I wanted to speed up the process and return and see my daughter,\u201d Morales said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Morales and his lawyer provided the Texas Tribune copies of his Social Security card and his birth certificate, which shows he was born in Denver. They also shared a Denver hospital record showing that he was admitted to the hospital the day he was born. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which keeps records of births in the state, said the agency is prohibited by state law from providing or confirming the validity of anyone\u2019s birth certificate.<\/p>\n

The Tribune also reviewed Morales\u2019 Mexican identification, which shows a different spelling of his first name and a different date of birth. His mother said that when she and her family returned to Mexico when Morales was 1 year old and registered him for Mexican citizenship, the clerk used the common Spanish spelling of his first name \u2014 Bryan \u2014 and changed his date of birth without checking his American birth certificate. <\/p>\n

C\u00e9sar Cuauht\u00e9moc Garc\u00eda-Hern\u00e1ndez, a law professor at Ohio State University and immigration attorney, said that it is common for dual citizens to have different versions of their names on different government documents.<\/p>\n

The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement that on April 3 one of its troopers pulled over a pickup truck in Fredericksburg for a window tint violation. The trooper called Gillespie County Sheriff\u2019s deputies and officers with the Fredericksburg Police Department to help translate for Morales and another passenger in the pickup. <\/p>\n

Officers then called ICE agents, who asked officers on the scene to hold the men.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security disputed Morales\u2019 citizenship claim, saying in a written statement that its agents \u201cdid NOT arrest a U.S. citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAgents determined Morales-Garcia was illegally in the U.S. through record checks,\u201d the statement said. \u201cMorales-Garcia also admitted he is a Mexican national and he entered the country illegally. He was subsequently removed to Mexico on April 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morales said he initially told agents that he entered the country legally through a port entry in El Paso, but they again accused him of lying \u201cand they told me I could go to prison, so I just told them I entered illegally.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked me how many miles away from the city and what date I entered, so at this point I was just making up numbers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Homeland Security didn\u2019t respond after the Tribune asked about Morales\u2019 U.S. birth certificate, Social Security card and hospital records.<\/p>\n

Univision was the first to report Morales\u2019<\/a> arrest and deportation.<\/p>\n

Starting a family in Denver before returning to Mexico<\/p>\n

Morales\u2019 mother, Mar\u00eda del Socorro Garc\u00eda, 44, said she and her sister moved from Mexico to Denver in 1999. She lived in an apartment complex and worked cleaning offices. She began dating a restaurant cook who lived in the same apartments, and two years later she gave birth to Brian. A year later they had another son, Miguel Morales Garc\u00eda. <\/p>\n

Socorro Garc\u00eda said she returned to Mexico with her sons in 2002 because she wanted them to meet their grandfather, who had been struggling with diabetes. Her husband followed them later, and they agreed to stay and raise their sons in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Miguel Morales, now 24, said when he became an adult he decided he wanted to know \u201chis roots\u201d and live in the country where he was born. He said he came to the U.S. three years ago with his Social Security card and told immigration agents that he didn\u2019t have a copy of his birth certificate but that he was a U.S. citizen. After identifying him, immigration agents let him through, he and his mother said.<\/p>\n

Once he reached Denver, he got a copy of his and his brother\u2019s birth certificates and gave his brother\u2019s certificate to him during a visit to Mexico. <\/p>\n

In January 2025, a family friend who also has relatives in Denver drove Brian Morales from Aguascalientes to the border city of Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez, where they drove across the bridge into El Paso. Brian Morales said he showed U.S. Customs and Border Protection his birth certificate and they let them through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to come to the U.S. because I wanted to work and help provide for my wife who was three months pregnant at the time,\u201d Brian Morales said.<\/p>\n

He moved in with his brother, but said he struggled to find work in Denver and decided to move to Austin with a friend, where he found a job installing air conditioning units. He said his boss was driving him and another coworker to Fredericksburg for a job when they were pulled over.<\/p>\n

Miguel Morales said his brother\u2019s roommate called him in Denver with news of his brother\u2019s detention by ICE.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I thought, \u2018Well he\u2019s a U.S. citizen, they\u2019re going to eventually release him,\u2019\u201d Miguel Morales said. <\/p>\n

Miguel Morales said he didn\u2019t learn his brother was in a detention center until an Univision reporter called him. He and his mother began to worry even more, he said, because he had read that people were suffering in detention centers. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got scared,\u201d said Miguel Morales, who works as a cashier at a McDonald\u2019s. \u201cAnd in my case, I haven\u2019t mastered speaking English yet, so I\u2019m worried about \u2026 being questioned, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Morales said he was transferred to five different facilities before he signed the deportation papers and was placed on a plane to Mexico. He said he wants to return to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a U.S. citizen, how can they treat me like this, just because I only speak Spanish?\u201d he said. \u201cI want them to take responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Socorro Garc\u00eda said she doesn\u2019t understand why her son was detained and deported.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel angry because he\u2019s from there, so why was he so mistreated?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Report found U.S. officials detained 170 U.S. citizens<\/p>\n

Morales\u2019 deportation is evidence that the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive immigration crackdown is leading immigration agents to racially profile Hispanic people and violate American citizens\u2019 civil rights, said Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, Morales\u2019 lawyer. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about what this case means for every single other person living in this country, we should all be afraid because no passenger in any vehicle who\u2019s driving down the road in any part of the United States who is a U.S. citizen has any legal obligation to carry proof of their citizenship,\u201d Lincoln-Goldfinch said. \u201cThe slippery slope is very obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro,<\/a> D-San Antonio, said in a statement that he\u2019s advocating for Morales\u2019 return to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis arrest and deportation are the direct result of Trump\u2019s cruel and haphazard mass deportation campaign,\u201d Castro said in a statement. \u201cThe Administration\u2019s immigration policies continue to threaten our constitutional rights, and it should raise alarms for everyone \u2014 including U.S. citizens. My office is in touch with Brian\u2019s attorney, and I will continue to push for his legal entry into the country. He belongs here.\u201d <\/p>\n

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, the research arm of the U.S. Congress, found that immigration agents \u201carrested 674, detained 121, and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens\u201d between 2015 and 2020, according to a July 2021 report.<\/a><\/p>\n

A ProPublica investigation found more than 170 U.S. citizens<\/a> were detained by immigration agents in the first nine months of President Trump\u2019s second administration. The report didn\u2019t identify anyone who was deported. <\/p>\n

Late last year, ICE agents arrested 22-year-old Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales<\/a>, whose lawyers say is a U.S. citizen and provided ICE officials with her birth certificate showing she was born in Maryland. Homeland Security contested her citizenship, saying she entered the country illegally. She was held in an immigrant detention center for 25 days before she was released.<\/p>\n

Recently, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a court order that during immigration stops, a person\u2019s \u201capparent ethnicity\u201d can be used by immigration agents as \u201ca relevant factor\u201d to question a person\u2019s citizenship status. Kavanaugh wrote<\/a> in his order that if the person is a U.S. citizen, \u201cthat individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigrant rights advocates and immigration lawyers warned that this ruling would lead ICE agents to racially profile people, including U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis administration\u2019s disdain for our fundamental rights has no bounds,\u201d Vanessa C\u00e1rdenas, executive director of America\u2019s Voice, a national immigrants rights advocacy group, said in a statement. <\/a>\u201cThe continued examples of U.S. citizens being detained and deported are a built-in feature of\u201d the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cmass deportation crusade and the culture that prioritizes speed and quotas instead of accuracy, accountability or dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[132,16532,27,29,28,6473,6588],"class_list":{"0":"post-264096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-gillespie-county","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-news","13":"tag-well-a-homepage","14":"tag-well-c-homepage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}