After being deported without even being able to say goodbye to her daughter, a California woman is back home several weeks after immigration authorities arrested her and sent her to Mexico over a decades-old removal order.
Maria de Jesús Estrada Juárez, a Mexican national who had been living in the United States for 27 years, was arrested earlier this year when she showed up for an immigration hearing. As reported by The Associated Press, she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Feb. 18 and deported to Mexico the following day.
As noted by the outlet, she was deported despite having protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, commonly known as DACA, a program established during the Barack Obama administration that allows people brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country.
In Juárez's case, the Trump administration said she was deported due to a 1998 removal order issued when she was a teenager shortly after arriving in the U.S. The Associated Press reported she was sent back to Mexico at the time but returned to the U.S. weeks later and has held DACA status since 2013.
On March 23, after several weeks living with relatives in Mexico, U.S. District Judge Dena Coggins issued a temporary restraining order to facilitate Juárez's return. Coggins said her deportation was a "flagrant violation" of her DACA protections and infringed on her due process rights.
"I didn't get to say goodbye," Juárez, 42, said at a news conference on March 31 in Sacramento. "It all happened so fast. This has been one of the most painful experiences of my life."
Although DACA recipients can remain in the U.S. legally and apply for renewable work permits, The Sacramento Bee reported that Department of Homeland Security data reveals that 86 DACA recipients were deported between Jan. 1 and Nov. 19, 2025. Before Juárez's case, there appears to be only one other case in which a recipient was allowed to return to the U.S., though that case did not involve a federal court order.
Despite the program offering recipients protections against deportation, Trump administration officials have taken a different view.
Last November, when immigration authorities arrested another DACA recipient for making pro-Palestinian posts on social media, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said DACA does not automatically protect individuals from deportation.
"DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country," she said, adding that recipients can lose their status "for a number of reasons, including if they've committed a crime."
Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security defended its decision to deport Juárez, with a spokesperson telling The Associated Press that ICE "follows all court orders," referring to the 1998 removal order Juárez had, which her lawyers argue was not final.
"DACA gives you a vested right not to be deported once it's granted," said Stacy Tolchin, an immigration attorney based in Pasadena, California. "I really don't understand what they're doing."
After spending several weeks in Mexico, Juárez was reunited with her 22-year-old daughter, Damaris Bello, who said having her back means the family can begin rebuilding their lives.
"It's hard to describe what it feels like to lose your mother so suddenly, especially when you believed she was safe," Bello said. "It was like grieving someone who was still alive."
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