Erick Hernandez-Rodriguez said he had taken the wrong outing of the highway and that he had accidentally crossed Mexico from San Diego.
Now, the US government says that it has “self-supported” and has illegally tried to return to the United States, it has been detained and should expel in Salvador, a country in which it has not lived since it was 14 years old. Hernandez-Rodriguez, 34, was in the United States under the action postponed for the children’s arrival program, or the DACA, which has grant work permits.
But Hernandez-Rodriguez is currently in a detention center in Otay Mesa, scheduled for accelerated withdrawal. His wife is expected to give birth in California to their second child before the end of the month.
The federal government does not show any leniency in its case, according to its lawyer Valerie Sigamani. Hernandez-Rodriguez works part-time as a Uber driver and tried to put a passenger near the border but missed its exit. He then led to Mexico, but when he tried to return to California, he was arrested.
Sigamandi believes that he was outside the United States for less than 30 minutes.
The status of Hernandez-Rodriguez under DACA provided some protection to undocumented immigrants in the past, but that has changed under the Trump administration.
“The DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country,” said assistant secretary of the Ministry of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement. “Any illegal stranger who is a DACA recipient can be subject to arrest and expulsion.”
Sigamani said that his client’s DACA status should show that Hernandez-Rodriguez had worked in the United States and was not trying to sneak.
“It seems that at that moment, there is not much mercy on people who make mistakes,” she said. “I hope that the CBP agents would understand and know that it is an accident, that this person did not intend to abandon his assertions, but it is a good person, and they accidentally left the United States”
His story was the first Reported by NBC News.
California is home to approximately 150,000 DACA recipients. The Hernandez-Rodriguez affair is the latest example of the Trump administration’s online immigration policies.
Before his second term, Trump said that he “would work with Democrats on a level” to help DACA beneficiaries stay in the country. But once elected president, Trump quickly moved to end Daca. The program was very much survived when the Supreme Court judged in 2020 that its administration had hurt it.
A case that calls into question the legality of DACA is should reach the Supreme CourtWhere some legal experts predict that the conservative majority can overturn it.
At the beginning of June, Javier Diaz Santana32 years old, another DACA beneficiary, was detained while working in car washing. Although he explained his situation, he was taken to a federal detention center in Texas and granted a deposit by an immigration judge.
In a handwritten declaration in the court and provided to the Times by his lawyer, Hernandez-Rodriguez said that he was working as a carpooling driver on May 31 and had picked up prices after the end of a football match in Los Angeles. He followed his GPS instructions and told him that he was approaching his release from the highway, but he missed it. He tried to go down to the next exit, but was blocked by police due to a car accident.
He thought he would have another chance of turning around, but he was online to cross the American border / Mexico in San Ysidro.
“I asked certain Mexican officers and explained what had happened to them,” said Hernandez-Rodriguez in his statement. “They told me that they would help me so that I could come back.”
The police directed him to the border, but he was still lost. He spoke to American officials on the border and showed them his DACA documentation, and they let him pass a checkpoint. His lawyer said he had a photo of his job authorization document which legally allows him to work in the United States
According to his declaration, the border officials then asked him to park his car and go to an office to register with border officials. They took its fingerprints, said Sagamani, and put Hernandez-Rodriguez in a room with three border officers. One of the officials said he could return to the United States if he paid $ 800, according to his declaration and his lawyer.
Sagamani said the officials asked for a bribes. Hernandez-Rodriguez said he had no money.
“They said,” You can call someone and ask them for money and then they can give it to us, “said Sigamani.
When it was clear that he could not pay them, another official handcraft him and placed him in police custody, said Sigamani.
In a statement, McLaughlin said: “Erick Hernandez Rodriguez, an illegal extraterrestrial from Mexico, was then tried to illegally reinstate the United States on June 1, 2025, the CBP police arrested Rodriguez while he was trying to illegally cross the southern border.”
Hernandez-Rodriguez is from El Salvador, not Mexico, according to a copy of his tourist visa.
In response to the assertion that a border manager asked Hernandez-Rodriguez for a bridge pot, McLaughlin said: “The CBP takes all the allegations of misconduct, investigates thoroughly and holds responsible employees when policies are raped. This case was referred to the professional responsibility of the CBP (OPR). ”.
On July 14, an immigration judge ordered Hernandez-Rodriguez to be withdrawn from the country after examining a credible determination of fear, a screening process given to asylum seekers who can face the persecution in their country of origin according to their race, their political opinion. Hernandez-Rodriguez said he feared that he would be appointed for discussing his political convictions. The court examined the testimonies and the evidence submitted, but Sigamani said that his client had not been able to speak with the judge.
“They don’t even let him see a judge,” said Sigamani. “I think it’s intentional.”
