When Juan Manuel Montes was standing outside of a restaurant in Calexico, California on Feb 19, waiting for a ride, Border Patrol agents detained him, processed him, and deported him, ignoring his claim that he was protected as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (Daca) program. The policy was established in 2012 by the Obama administration which allows illegal immigrants who were raised in the United States to be considered low-priority by immigration enforcement for deportation.
Montes came to the U.S. with his family when he was 9-years-old. He was now 23. Montes is what is referred to as a DREAMer which stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors and is reportedly the first DREAMer to have been deported. Daniela Vargas of Jacksonville, Mississippi would be the second to be detained in March. The trump administration claims that they do not have any records of his deportation from that day and argued that Montes left the U.S. voluntarily and therefore gave up his DACA protection. A hearing was held at the U.S. District Court in southern California this Tuesday where lawyers for both the government and Montes were present.
Judge orders return of DREAMer
Without Montes being at the hearing, both sides agreed that soon after the incident, he tried to re-enter the country by jumping a border wall for which he was arrested and deported, again. For this case, the judge is working to order the Trump administration to allow Montes back into the country for trial before the end of the year. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel's order is to allow Montes to provide the court with his reasons for why he should stay in the U.S., and he wants the Trump administration to hear Montes' argument first hand.
Juan is also looking to make his own case for being wrongfully deported. Judge Curiel has said that if Montes' account of being detained is true, then it was the government that violated his rights for due process.
The judge is looking to have the trial in October but a report by USA Today titled: "Judge may rule next week on letting first deported DREAMer back into the U.S." said that there was some resistance from the plaintiffs to have the trial so soon. The judge said that if that was the case, there was still no excuse with available Skype and Face Time video technology today.
Evolution of right-wing anti-immigrant position
The administration's effort to undermine the DACA act is not surprising. For one, Donald Trump's position is the evolution of the demands of Tea Party conservatives who rose up against establishment Republicans when Barack Obama first became president. The fact that they too rose up against the first black president of the United States is also not surprising.
Their outrage against all minorities was clear when they expressed their outrage against the fact that a minority had taken office.
Over a period of eight years, the Tea Party's influence of right-wing extremism would spread and their elections would find strongholds within government. That influence would take the form of a xenophobic President Trump with a weaponized stance against immigrant minorities. With President Trump obsessed with targeting President Obama's legacy and rolling back everything from the former administration, there's every reason to believe that Trump will kill the DACA act. It was reported in June that Trump would not do away with work permits for those immigrants. But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that they are still reviewing the act.
Trump vs. Curiel
When members of the extremist right-wing Tea Party began to take powerful positions in government, they tested the limits of the law using aggressive ignorance, forcing the courts to play "catch up" every time. Such is the case with Juan Manuel Montes who would have been forgotten had it not have been for his effort to fight back. But it's also important to point out Judge Curiel's involvement as Donald Trump targeted him last year over the Trump University lawsuit. The then-candidate made it very clear that he didn't want Curiel deciding his case because of his Hispanic heritage, publicly demanding that he be removed because of his potential bias against him for wanting to build a wall along the Mexican-American border.
Extremist right-wing trial balloons
While the President was speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday, inflaming racial tension, Judge Curiel was holding his hearing on Montes' case. To the administration's claims that there was not documentation of Juan's deportation, Curiel said he had never seen a case where law enforcement removed someone from the country without having any documentation.
But this display of aggressive ignorance is just par for the course, as DHS' claim that they do not have documentation is the kind of defiance the administration uses to challenge them in their case. But there are also conflicting accounts coming from DHS and Border Patrol. Initially, DHS said in April that Montes' DACA status had expired in 2015, only to come back the next day and say that it was still active, but used the defense that he voluntarily forfeited his status, likely, to save face.