With the Obama administration currently fighting to secure legal status for millions of immigrants, it shocked Luis Jaquez, who's already a citizen, when he was deported for allegedly possessing a fraudulent birth certificate.
The 24-year-old has used that same birth certificate to travel between the U.S. and Mexico for years, but last October, Jaquez was arrested at an international bridge on fraud charges, reported San Antonio KENS 5.
"They deported me," Jaquez, who is now living with his mother and siblings in a small house in Anapra, a community near border town Ciudad Juarez, told the paper.
But Jaquez believes he has the right to come back to his home in El Paso, Tex., telling KENS 5, "I'm a U.S. citizens. I'm not a Mexican."
According to the government, the authenticity of his birth certificate is not in question. The problem is that the birth certificate was allegedly obtained fraudulently. But a federal court ruled in his favor, and a jury acquitted Jaquez in February. Nonetheless, he was still sent back to Mexico two days later, according to KENS 5.
"How is it that having a valid birth certificate and a judgement of acquittal is not enough?" asked Sergio Garcia, the public defender who represented Jaquez.
His birth certificate says he was home birthed in El Paso. But ever since a group of midwives near the border pleaded guilty to selling birth certificates to non-citizens, immigrants claiming a home birth are automatically suspected of possessing fraudulent certificates. Many are denied re-entry to the country, are unable to obtain U.S. passports, and subject to deportation.
Jaquez's mother says she gave birth to him in her sisters house because she was afraid to go to the hospital due to her illegal status.
She brought him back to Ciudad Juarez as a child and registered him in school as a "foreign" student, as he doesn't have a Mexican birth certificate.
Then, in 2009, she applied for a U.S. passport for him, because that year, the U.S. government required every American who wanted to leave and return to the country to have a passport.
But the application was rejected by the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, and Jaquez says his mother was pressured under threat of jail time to sign a document admitting he was born in Mexico.
