'Dreamer' who claimed to be unlawfully deported to Mexico drops lawsuit against feds
'Dreamer' who claimed to be unlawfully deported to Mexico drops lawsuit against feds
Kristina Davis Contact Reporter
Attorneys for a 23-year-old who claimed to be the first “dreamer” deported under the Trumpadministration have dropped their lawsuit against the federal government.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez not only sought his return to the U.S., but also asked the government to release records of his encounter with border officers the night of Feb. 18. The government has contended that there was no encounter, that Montes was lying, and therefore no such records existed.
According to a motion for dismissal filed late Wednesday, the government resolved the records request by producing supplemental documents on Oct. 5, and Montes decided not to pursue his additional claims. A judge approved the motion on Thursday.
The case gained national attention and put the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program in the political spotlight.
Under DACA, those brought to the U.S. illegally as children were promised that they could remain in the country as long as they registered with the government, worked or attended school and followed other criteria.
The program, created under former President Barack Obama, is now slated to end March 5 at the direction of President Donald Trump. He has told Congress to come up with a law to address the status of childhood arrivals.
Montes, who was brought to the U.S. as a 9-year-old boy in 2004 and suffers from cognitive disabilities, was enrolled in DACA when he said a Border Patrol agent on a bicycle took him off the street in Calexico. Authorities then removed him to Mexico at 1 a.m. He said he had forgotten his wallet in a friend’s car, and the agents didn’t take the appropriate steps to verify his identity.
He said he was robbed of his belongings the next day in Mexicali and, out of fear, decided to cross over the border fence back into the U.S. He was immediately arrested by Border Patrol and again taken back to Mexico, he said.
The government said it has no record of an encounter with Montes the first time.
The Calexico Border Patrol chief said in a sworn affidavit there were other problems with Montes’ claims. The chief said there have been no repatriations after 10 p.m. this year, and that there were no agents working bicycle patrol the night in question.
The government argued that Border Patrol validly removed Montes to Mexico on Feb. 19 because DACA participants are not allowed to cross into Mexico without prior permission, and Montes’ actions made him ineligible for protection.
(The government originally claimed that Montes was removed because he had failed to renew his DACA enrollment. But the explanation was changed to say that Montes had been enrolled but his illegal crossing made him lose his privileges.)
The case has been on the fast-track toward trial since August, when Montes’ attorneys filed a request asking the judge to allow Montes to lawfully return to the U.S. while the case is pending. But U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel declined to decide on that issue and instead asked for a speedy trial.
Trial was set for December, and both sides have been in the process of exchanging discovery and preparing for depositions.
Montes’ attorneys had been asking for numerous records of Border Patrol’s operations on Feb. 18 — from surveillance footage to names of agents to policies and practices.
Government attorneys said that surveillance video from then was not available because it is standard practice to tape over footage after 30 days.
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