A 30-year-old DACA recipient who was deported to Honduras in January and later flown back to the United States by Immigration and Customs Enforcement was released from a Texas detention facility Thursday, reuniting with his wife and sisters and meeting his newborn son for the first time.
José Contreras Diaz, who was brought to the U.S. as a child, was held for more than a week at Port Isabel detention facility after arriving on a chartered ICE flight last week — despite holding active status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
MS NOW was the first to report the news of Contreras Diaz’s return and detainment as the only outlet present with his sisters while they awaited his arrival at Harlingen’s airport. The day ended in shock for Cindy Contreras, 28, and Emily Baharona, 20, as they shared the heartbreak and pain of being separated from their brother.
Contreras Diaz met his newborn son, Mateo, for the first time after his release, when his wife, sisters and brother-in-law picked him up in Brownsville, roughly an hour from their home.
“José should never have been detained or deported in the first place because his DACA status was valid, and his parole was granted,” said Stacy Tolchin, Contreras Diaz’s attorney. “It has been a long and difficult road, but I’m so glad he is home with his family now.”
Tolchin added that her client “will stay here while he has DACA, just like thousands of other DACA recipients who came here as children and are waiting on a path to become U.S. citizens.”
The Department of Homeland Security said it deported Contreras Diaz in January based on a removal order issued by an immigration judge more than two decades ago that applied to his family. Contreras Diaz was 8 at the time.
DHS has maintained that “DACA does NOT confer any form of legal status,” but federal courts have repeatedly ruled that under current regulation, the program does provide protection from detainment or removal. Immigration judges and federal judges have recently ordered the release and return of multiple DACA recipients.
After ICE detained Contreras Diaz upon bringing him back to the U.S. on a chartered flight, the agency provided no explanation for his detention. DHS also did not explain to Contreras Diaz or his attorney why the Trump administration reversed its decision to deport him.
“The end result will be the same — he will not be able to remain in the U.S.,” a DHS spokesperson told MS NOW last week. The department did not immediately respond to questions about his release.
President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, did not rule out targeting DACA recipients in his mass deportation campaign, which he has said will continue in full force.
Asked by MS NOW if people with DACA status are deportation targets, Homan said, “If you’re in the country illegally, you got a problem.”
Contreras Diaz’s sister is an active DACA recipient herself and said she now carries a constant fear that she could be detained or deported next.
“It also gave me a sense of ‘Whoa, you know, like we really don’t belong here, even though me and him feel as if we do, because we were raised here. We did everything here,” she recently told MS NOW.
She hopes that Americans try to understand her family’s experience.
“Try to understand our feelings, try to understand the effect that this administration has had on us. Just for even a second imagining if their husband just got taken away, if their husband didn’t get to meet their baby, their first baby boy,” she continued, referring to her brother’s separation from his wife and newborn. “And then to really think, are we actually bad people? Are we actually causing you harm?”
Baharona, who is a U.S. citizen, carries that same fear.
“I’m always thinking, like, ‘Is she okay? Did she make it home?’” Baharona said of her worries that her sister could be detained like her brother. “They live their life just like any U.S. citizen would. They again, they don’t cause harm to anybody.”
Jacqueline Alemany and Simone Perez contributed to this article.
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