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Missing an exit while driving on a San Diego freeway upended the life of Erick Hernandez, a DACA recipient who is now at risk of being deported to El Salvador, a country he hasn’t seen in 20 years.
Hernandez, 34, was giving two passengers a ride from Los Angeles to San Ysidro, known as the “most southern community in California” because it is so close to the Mexican border, on June 1 as a driver for a ride-share service.
But he accidentally ended up in Tijuana, Mexico, after missing an exit, NBC San Diego reported this week. Because DACA recipients are not allowed to leave the country without prior approval, federal immigration authorities took Hernandez into custody when he tried to return to the U.S.
Hernandez’s case is one of the most recent showing how fears of possible deportation are becoming a reality for some undocumented young adults with legal permission to work and study in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
“His attempt to come back to the United States and say, ‘This was a mistake. It was an accident. I was not trying to leave the United States,’ was ignored,” Hernandez’s attorney, Valerie Sigamani, told NBC San Diego. “When that happened, he lost everything.”
‘A growing pattern’
Javier Diaz Santana, a DACA recipient who is deaf and mute, was detained in June when immigration authorities raided the car wash where he worked. And this month, a 36-year-old DACA recipient from Florida was among the first to be detained in the state’s new immigrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Anabel Mendoza, director of communications at United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led network, told NBC News the organization is starting to notice a “growing pattern that is exposing the vulnerabilities” DACA recipients face under Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told NBC News on Thursday that having “DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”
McLaughlin said that “a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation.”
But DACA recipients are not breaking the law by being in the U.S. A court ruling this year determined that all current DACA recipients can keep their deportation protections and work authorizations as long as they meet their requirements and renew their status.
The court ruling was issued as part of a seven-year legal challenge from the first Trump administration and nine Republican-led states seeking to end DACA, which was started in 2012.
Support for ‘Dreamers’ — but a crackdown instead
Trump’s efforts to end DACA in his first term and Republican legal challenges shut out an estimated 600,000 DACA-eligible teenagers and young adults from the program, which hasn’t been open to new applications because of ongoing lawsuits.
Polls and surveys have consistently shown that most U.S. adults favor granting permanent legal status and a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers” — young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
In December, Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” he would work on a plan “to do something about the Dreamers.” But last month, a White House spokesperson told NBC News this wasn’t a priority for the president, who is instead focusing on “deporting criminal illegal aliens.”
The recent detentions of DACA recipients and the administration’s comments that DACA doesn’t “confer legal status” highlight the need to pass permanent protections that include a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 530,000 people in the DACA program, Mendoza said.
Meanwhile, DACA recipients continue to stress their ties to the U.S. and that they’ve abided by the law.
“To qualify for DACA, we have to pass [background] checks, have a clean criminal record, and be good people,” said Evenezer Cortez Martínez, a DACA recipient who was recently denied re-entry into the U.S. and deported despite having secured permission to go on a trip to Mexico; he was able to return after two weeks.
“It was very stressful. I thought I had lost everything,” Cortez Martínez told NBC News following his return home in April.
When Diaz Santana was confronted by immigration authorities on June 12 during a raid at his workplace, the deaf and mute DACA recipient showed them his Real ID driver’s license. Diaz Santana believed he would be safe, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the story. After all, he has DACA status, no criminal history and a valid identification.
Still, he was taken into custody and spent a month in a detention center in Texas. Diaz Santana was released two weeks ago on a $1,500 bond, the lowest amount possible. He is at home in California with a GPS ankle monitor that allows immigration officials to keep tabs on his whereabouts, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“This individual is an illegal alien. This ministration is not going to ignore the rule of law,” McLaughlin said, though Diaz Santana has legal permission under DACA.
In Florida, a 36-year-old DACA recipient was detained after missing a court date for driving with a suspended license, WESH-TV, NBC’s affiliate in Orlando, reported. Josephine Arroyo, his attorney, told NBC News on Wednesday her client has no criminal convictions and has not been formally charged with any infractions. He has a “great job,” she previously told WESH, adding that his employer had written a letter on his behalf.
The DACA recipient has spent the past two months in immigration detention, including about two weeks in Alligator Alcatraz, which is facing allegations for keeping detainees in torturous conditions.
Arroyo said she was able to get her client relocated to the Glades County Detention Center this week. When she visited him on Monday, her client said he was desperate to see his family.
“He is still shocked and surprised this happened to him,” despite having DACA, said Arroyo, who requested that her client be granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of his case.
In California, Hernandez is being held in the Otay Mesa Detention Center. He has no criminal history, his attorney and family told NBC San Diego.
Sigamani, his attorney, said immigration authorities at the border asked Hernandez for an $800 bribe in exchange for letting him return to the U.S. after mistakenly ending up in Mexico.
After declining, according to the attorney, Hernandez was placed in expedited removal proceedings, making him ineligible for bond and unable to witness the birth of his son next month.
“I’m just worried that if he gets deported,” Hernandez’s pregnant wife, Nancy Rivera, told NBC San Diego, “how I’m going to manage everything by myself?”
Sigamani said she filed a complaint with the FBI, hoping her client will be shielded from deportation if he is asked to cooperate in an investigation into his detention.
McLaughlin said that the Office of Professional Responsibility at Customs and Border Protection is conducting a review of the allegations. She also characterized Hernandez’s wrong turn while driving as a self-deportation and his attempt to return as an illegal re-entry.
“A little mistake should not upend your entire life,” said Mendoza, of United We Dream.
“DACA,” she said, “is supposed to protect them from detention and deportation.”
