I reveal no great secrets when I say that the United States has deported its own citizens numerous times. Many news outlets have covered the problem, including the New Yorkermagazine in the April 29, 2013 article “The Deportation Machine.” In this piece, William Finnegan describes the travails of a cognitively disabled man who was born and raised in the United States, yet deported to Mexico through the actions of careless, overzealous bureaucrats.
The urge to deport is not the only cause of U.S. citizens’ removal. News reports abound of overburdened Immigration Judges and unrepresented immigrants, who often appear in court en masse via televideo. This procedural travesty results in legal and factual oversights — and the permanent banishment of U.S. citizens.
Sadly, none of this remains “news.”
Less well known is how deep the problem of failure to identify citizens goes. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit taught everyone a bitter lesson on the issue last week. The Court addressed the case of Sigifredo Saldana Iracheta, a native of Mexico who had been arrested for “illegally” reentering the United States after deportation. On September 11, the Court ruled that Saldana Iracheta is in fact a U.S. citizen by virtue of his blood relationship with his U.S. citizen father. In other words, it was unlawful to deport Saldana Iracheta to Mexico in the first place, and the Court barred the government from doing so again.
To read the rest: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-murraytjan/when-will-we-stop-deporti_b_3942843.html