Senators demand return of deported California DACA recipient

WASHINGTON— Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called on the Department of Homeland Security to extradite a California woman with DACA who was recently deported a day after her green card interview.

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is an Obama-era program that, since 2012, has protected some immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation and allowed them to work legally.

Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez lived in California for 27 years before being detained during a green card interview last month and deported within 24 hours, even though she had active DACA protection and no criminal history. His story was first reported Sacramento Bee.

In a phone call with reporters from Mexico on Thursday, Estrada Juarez, 42, said DACA should protect people like him who work hard and follow the rules.

“I did everything I could to build a stable life and give my daughter the opportunities I never had,” she said. “But everything changed about two weeks ago. I was unjustly deported. In an instant, almost 30 years of my life were taken away from me, my home, my job, my community.”

Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Estrada’s case.

The detention and deportation of DACA recipients stands in stark contrast to previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, and years of bipartisan support for immigrants brought to the United States as children. To be accepted into the program, they must pass background checks and meet certain educational or job requirements.

Trump has sent mixed signals about DACA recipients, known as “Dreamers.” He tried to shut down the program during his first term but failed. “I want to be able to figure something out” for them, he said on “Meet the Press” in December 2024, but he gave no details and the administration did nothing to offer them extra protection.

The program’s fate has remained entangled in lawsuits ever since.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said the Department of Homeland Security has provided members of Congress with conflicting data about how many DACA recipients have been detained and deported since Trump returned to the White House.

In a letter dated January 12 Speaking to Garcia, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that between January 1 and September 28, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 270 DACA recipients. The letter did not specify how many of these 270 people were deported.

Of those, 130 had criminal convictions, 120 had pending criminal charges and 14 had violated immigration law, he wrote. The total of this would be 264, not 270.

“Please note that DACA is a form of prosecutorial discretion that does not provide legal status,” wrote Noem, who was fired Thursday.

But in a letter Noem gave Durbin and other senators smaller numbers last month, but referenced a longer period between Jan. 1 and Nov. 19, 2025. He said the agency arrested 261 DACA recipients and deported 86 of them.

He said 241 of those arrested had criminal records, but did not specify whether that meant a conviction or pending charge.

on wednesday“The inconsistencies between your two responses indicate gross incompetence or intentional misdirection,” Garcia wrote to Noem.

The conflicting data from Noem came after 95 members of Congress attended in September. desired answers About targeting DACA recipients. They wrote this letter after former Homeland Security public affairs secretary Tricia McLaughlin said DACA recipients “are not automatically protected from deportation.”

Lawmakers cited the case of a DACA recipient with no criminal history, who was deaf and had no verbal language, who was detained during immigration raids in Los Angeles last year. He was later released.

As of June 2025, there were more than 515,000 DACA recipients in the United States; that’s a drop from the program’s peak of about 800,000. California has the most population out of 144,000 states, according to federal data.

Estrada Juarez did not take questions during a call with reporters Thursday, but Ivonne Rodriguez, press director for immigration reform at the advocacy group FWD.us, told The Times what happened.

Around 11 a.m. on February 18, Estrada Juarez, accompanied by her daughter Damaris Bello, a 22-year-old U.S. citizen, arrived at the John E. Moss Federal Building in Sacramento for an interview as part of the process to obtain lawful permanent resident status, or a green card.

At the courthouse, immigration officials took Estrada Juarez’s fingerprints and asked him to apply his fingerprints to a form indicating he agreed to be deported, Rodriguez said. He refused.

“If you don’t sign, I’ll make you sign,” a police officer told Estrada Juarez. The officer grabbed his hand and forced him to sign using his fingerprint, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said federal agents cited a 1998 deportation order when Estrada Juarez was detained at the courthouse last month. But being a DACA recipient should mean that such orders will not be enforced while the protected status is active, as long as the person stays out of criminal trouble.

“This whole time he kept saying he had active DACA and they didn’t care,” Rodriguez said.

At 8 a.m. the next morning, Estrada Juarez was dropped off in Tijuana by bus, Rodriguez said.

Estrada Juarez is among the scores of immigrants detained for deportation in courthouses since last year; This is a departure from the long-standing old procedure.

during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing In Homeland Security custody on Tuesday, Durbin asked Noem about Estrada Juarez and other DACA recipients who were deported.

“Mr. Secretary, why did you deport dozens of DACA holders who had to comply with criminal records to be eligible for DACA?” Durbin asked.

“Sir, we comply with all laws governing the Department of Homeland Security,” Noem replied before Durbin cut her off.

“Why did you deport them?” he repeated.

Noem said she was not familiar with the details of Estrada Juarez’s case but would investigate.

During a meeting with Estrada Juarez on Thursday, Sen. Padilla (D-Calif.) said he met his daughter this week. He and other Democrats have called on Congress to pass legislation that would permanently protect DACA recipients from deportation.

“DACA recipients did everything right and followed all instructions outlined in the program,” he said. “They followed the word of the United States government and kept their end of the agreement. But we now know that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem did not keep the government at its word.”

Estrada Juarez says justice in his case would mean allowing him to return to the US

“I don’t want any special treatment,” he said. “I want what’s right. My deportation was wrong and my family shouldn’t be torn apart. I just want to go home and change so I can hold my daughter again.”