DHS cites Texas mother's deportation as ‘unauthorized travel' and ends her DACA status
A Texas mother deported to Mexico despite having legal permission to stay in the U.S. after arriving as a child has filed a lawsuit against the federal government after it notified her it would be terminating her permission because of “unauthorized travel” stemming from her deportation.
Jessica Treviño, 34, filed a lawsuit through her attorney this week asking a federal judge to intervene.
Treviño and her husband were arrested in December after federal agents followed them and two of their daughters into a Home Depot parking lot in South Texas. Both were deported and are living in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of Brownsville, Texas. Their three children, all U.S. citizens, are living with family on the U.S. side near the border.
After being brought to the country as a child at the age of 7, Treviño subsequently received legal permission at 20 to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Introduced in 2012, DACA does not confer legal status but has allowed hundreds of thousands of people who had come to the U.S. as children to temporarily remain and obtain work permits.
As a DACA recipient, she must maintain a clean criminal record and is not allowed to travel outside the United States.
Her attorney, David Rozas, filed the lawsuit. He noted her status and work permit were most recently authorized until April 2027.
Notice to terminate DACA cites ‘unauthorized travel’
Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent her a notice of intent to terminate her status for “unauthorized travel outside of the United States on or about March 25, 2026,” the same day she was deported from the country by the Department of Homeland Security.
In a statement, DHS said Treviño’s husband was in the country without permission and driving at the time of the arrest. After a collision between the couple’s vehicle and an unmarked Homeland Security Investigations vehicle, the couple was arrested. DHS claimed she “knowingly accepted voluntary departure and waived appeal. She left the U.S. on March 25, 2026, and will NOT return.”
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Treviño said she did not sign any forms at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility and did not want to be deported.
Lawsuit seeks restitution of status
Rozas filed a petition asking a federal judge in Brownsville to declare the woman’s expulsion was unlawful, order the government to facilitate Treviño’s return to the U.S. and allow her DACA status to remain valid.
“The government had no lawful basis to remove her, and we filed this petition to demand she be brought back home,” her attorney added.
An immigration judge under the Justice Department had issued a voluntary departure order for Treviño in February while she was in ICE custody, but a valid DACA status prevents the Department of Homeland Security from deporting her.
“I would be so blessed to be able to go back home, because that’s what I long for most right now. I’m really desperate. It’s been seven months since I’ve been home,” Treviño said Thursday. Her three children are set to start school next month and their mother said she would like to be there.
The current Trump administration has deported 86 DACA recipients and arrested 241 others, according to a DHS letter sent in February to Democratic Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.
Advocates for DACA recipients say Treviño’s deportation is part of a pattern.
“This is what a deliberate, systematic effort to destroy DACA looks like in practice: target recipients one by one, manufacture justifications after the fact, and leave their children to grow up without them,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a policy organization defending immigration rights.
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