23-year-old man becomes first 'DREAMer' deported under Trump

A border patrol agent drives past the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
(Image credit: Jeff Topping/Getty Images)

Within three hours of his encounter with a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in California, a 23-year-old man who appears to have active Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status was walked across the Mexican border and told to stay in his birth country. On Tuesday, he sued the Trump administration, demanding answers.

The DACA program, created by former President Barack Obama, protects from deportation undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. while they were children. While President Trump has signed strict executive orders regarding immigration, he hasn't revoked the DACA protections that cover more than 750,000 people, often called "DREAMers," saying he has a "big heart." But on February 17, Juan Manuel Montes, who came to the U.S. at age 9, was approached by a border patrol agent while he waited for a ride in Calexico. He said he left his wallet with his ID and proof of DACA status in a friend's car, Montes said in a statement, and asked if he could retrieve it; he was told he couldn't. "They detained me, they took me to a center, they asked me a lot questions, and I signed a lot of papers," he told USA Today.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.