Brian José Morales García, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen born in Denver, has returned to the United States after spending nearly five months in Mexico following a wrongful deportation. His ordeal began on April 3, when Texas Department of Public Safety troopers stopped the vehicle he was riding in near Fredericksburg, citing an alleged window tint violation. Despite his repeated assertions that he was an American citizen, the situation escalated when local law enforcement contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Following the traffic stop, Morales García was held for four days, during which he was moved through various detention facilities. His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, reported that during this period, he was subjected to physical abuse, including being stripped and shoved, and faced threats of imprisonment. Under this duress, he eventually signed documents agreeing to his removal. By April 7, he was placed on a flight to Mexico, a country he had not lived in since his childhood.
The federal government does not maintain comprehensive public data on how often U.S. citizens are caught in the immigration system, but a 2021 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report provided some insight. It found that between fiscal year 2015 and the first two quarters of 2020, ICE arrested 674 potential U.S. citizens, detained 121, and deported 70. The majority of these deportations, totaling 66 individuals, occurred during the first term of President Donald Trump.
Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University and founder of the school’s Deportation Research Clinic, describes these incidents as a systemic failure. She characterizes these cases as the “900-pound gorilla in the coal mine,” noting that if the system cannot accurately identify its own citizens, its broader reliability is in question. Stevens argues that the current immigration enforcement framework operates with diminishing accountability and insufficient internal oversight.
Morales García’s path back to the U.S. required a federal lawsuit filed by his legal team in May. Three weeks after the litigation commenced, the government shifted its position. In a court filing dated May 21, Justice Department attorneys claimed that Morales García had initially provided conflicting information to a Border Patrol agent regarding his entry into the country. The Department of Justice denied allegations of coercion, asserting that he voluntarily requested to return to Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security did not provide a comment on the case.
The legal team, including attorney Richard “Dicky” Grigg, intends to pursue damages to hold both state and federal officials accountable. Grigg emphasized that the goal of the lawsuit is to prevent similar errors from occurring in the future, noting that the government effectively took four months of his client’s life before acknowledging the mistake. Morales García, who has expressed lingering fear that such an event could happen again, continues to focus on supporting his family, maintaining the resolve to “echarle ganas”—to keep working and giving his all.
The case highlights ongoing concerns regarding the training and protocols of immigration officers. The 2021 GAO investigation revealed that protections meant to safeguard citizens are often misunderstood or inconsistently applied. While federal regulations mandate that unresolved citizenship claims be referred to an immigration court, it remains unclear if these safeguards were followed in this instance. Furthermore, experts point to a trend where the burden of proof effectively shifts to the individual, and evidence contradicting a deportation order is frequently dismissed as inaccurate by authorities.
Recent history shows this is not an isolated issue. Last year, 22-year-old Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales was held in ICE custody for 25 days while the Department of Homeland Security challenged the validity of her Maryland birth certificate. She was eventually released after receiving a U.S. passport. These cases underscore the vulnerability of individuals when faced with an enforcement system that is increasingly focused on high-volume arrests and operates with fewer internal checks. The report also notes that his attorney said, he was stripped, shoved and threatened with years in prison, along the way. The report also notes that largely uncounted history of U.S, he is part of a long. The report also notes that citizens, but investigations by journalists, researchers and oversight agencies have documented thousands of citizens detained, deported or otherwise targeted by immigration authorities across decades. The report also notes that citizens account for as many as 1.5% of all deportees. The report also notes that yet, even those numbers do not tell the full story. The report also notes that citizens, making it impossible to know how many people were actually swept into the system. The report also notes that the problem has persisted through successive Republican and Democratic administrations. The report also notes that the result, they warn, is that more citizens could be swept into the dragnet and have fewer places to turn once they are.