An American citizen was held in a Florida jail at the request of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) despite the county judge being able to see a U.S. birth certificate in court. 

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, who was born in the United States, was detained Wednesday in Florida by the state’s highway patrol and was charged with illegally entering the Sunshine State as an “unauthorized alien” under a state law that has been temporarily blocked by a judge, the Florida Phoenix news outlet reported Thursday. 

Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans said Thursday that despite the charge against Lopez-Gomez being dropped, she did not have the authority to release the 20-year-old because ICE asked Leon County Jail to hold Lopez-Gomez. 

The judge inspected Lopez-Gomez’s birth certificate, which had been waived earlier in court by a supporter, saying “In looking at it, and feeling it, and holding it up to the light, the court can clearly see the watermark to show that this is indeed an authentic document,” according to Florida Phoenix. 

Lopez-Gomez was heading from Georgia and was pulled over in Florida by a Highway Patrol trooper.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a sweeping immigration law that made it a state crime for undocumented immigrants over the age of 18 to “knowingly enter or attempt to enter” Florida by “eluding or avoiding examination or inspection by immigration officers.”

The Hill has reached out to ICE for comment. 

Gomez-Lopez was born in Georgia. His first language is Tzotzil, Florida Phoenix reported. 

His mother cried after seeing her son appear for a virtual hearing in court. 

“I wanted to tell them, ‘Where are you going to take him? He is from here,’” she told the outlet. “I felt immense helplessness because I couldn’t do anything, and I am desperate to get my son out of there.”

Protests took place in front of the Leon County jail where the 20-year-old was held. He was released and reunited with his mother Thursday evening, Florida Phoenix reported.

“It’s like this bureaucratic, dystopian nightmare of poorly written laws,” Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition, who attended the Thursday hearing, told NBC News. “We are living in a time when this man could get sent to El Salvador because, what, is he going to be treated like a stateless person?”

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida legal fellow Amy Godshall told The Independent that Lopez-Gomez’s detention was “based on a patently false allegation that he entered the state while undocumented,” adding that “all this despite his mother appearing in court with his Social Security card and his birth certificate showing his place of birth as the United States.”