A 30-year-old South Texas man was freed by federal officials Thursday after being deported earlier this year, and returned to the United States, only to be detained once again.<\/p>\n
Before he was deported, Jos\u00e9 Contreras D\u00edaz \u2014 whose mother raised him in the Rio Grande Valley \u2014 lived in Edinburg as a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. If approved by federal officials, DACA recipients get protection from deportation and two-year-renewable work permits as long as they keep a clean criminal record.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Thursday, Contreras, who was most recently detained for about a week, said he is ready to move forward with his life and rejoin his 2-month-old son and wife in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would not wish what I\u2019ve been through on anyone. They detained me, sent me to a country I barely remember,\u201d Contreras said. They \u201cgave me hope \u2014 the hope that I could come home, see my family, and hold my son again. Then that hope was taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n
In December, Contreras received an appointment notice to an immigration office for the following month to discuss his case, he said. At the immigration office, agents arrested and deported him weeks before his son was born in late February. He said agents told him he had a deportation order since he was 8 years old.<\/p>\n
In an interview, Contreras said that when his mother brought him and his sisters to Texas, she had turned herself in to an immigration agent at the Texas-Mexico border. She and her family were released but missed an immigration court appointment, which led to her and her children\u2019s deportation order.<\/p>\n
After he was deported to Honduras, he contacted Stacy Tolchin, an immigration attorney. Tolchin sued the Trump administration, which led to a federal judge\u2019s order to return 42-year-old Maria de Jes\u00fas Estrada Ju\u00e1rez, another DACA recipient, <\/a>to the U.S. after being arrested at an immigration appointment and later deported.<\/p>\n In Contreras\u2019 case, Tolchin wrote a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguing that deporting Contreras was illegal because his DACA status was still valid at the time of his arrest. Tolchin included in the letter the judge\u2019s ruling <\/a>in Estrada\u2019s case, which said that deporting her was a \u201cflagrant violation\u201d of DACA protections.<\/a><\/p>\n Immigration officials notified his lawyer that they would facilitate his return. But as soon as he landed in Harlingen on April 29, immigration agents arrested him and held him in custody at the Port Isabel Detention Center.<\/p>\n Previously, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, of DHS, had said the Trump administration does not recognize DACA as a \u201cform of legal status in this country.\u201d In the statement, DHS also said immigration agents could still deport Contreras.<\/p>\n \u201cThe end result will be the same \u2014 he will not be able to remain in the U.S.,\u201d the statement released last week said. \u201cThe fact of the matter is those who are in our country illegally have a choice \u2014 they can leave the country voluntarily or be arrested and deported.\u201d<\/p>\n