LIn June, federal agents confiscated the documentation of a self-proclaimed U.S. citizen and deported him to Mexico under a controversial CDC order that apparently sought to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Daily Beast. And despite a series of executive actions pushing back some immigration policies from the Trump era, newly-elected President Joe Biden has left that order in place, with his administration offering no clear indication that it has planned to finish it soon.
All available evidence indicates that Óscar Luis Cortes García was born in May 1991 in Los Angeles, California. When he was still a baby, his mother decided to return to his hometown, in the Mexican state of Colima, Cortés recently explained. He spent most of the next two decades in Mexico, but clung to the notion of one day living in the United States.
“They didn’t even try, they kicked him out so quickly.”
– Angelica Garcia
When the coronavirus pandemic dried up all the work in his city, he finally decided to make the leap and make the trip, he said. But he had no idea of U.S. immigration and border legislation, or a passport, when he first tried to enter the country.
“I had so little information, what could I do,” Cortes told The Daily Beast. “I do not have the resources to go to a consulate. I was later told that the consulates were free, but I didn’t know it at the time. “
Deciding that a citizen would be allowed to enter anywhere on the border, Cortes stated that he crossed between the official ports of entry.
Shortly afterwards, Cortés was arrested with a group of undocumented migrants. He thought he could present his identity documents when they took him to a processing center. Instead, he was immediately taken into custody and deported under CDC Title 42, which authorizes U.S. personnel to enforce immigration to immediately remove people without valid entry documents, even if they had intention to apply for asylum.
The statute on which it is based is not strictly an immigration issue, but a public health measure aimed at stopping the introduction of communicable diseases into the United States. Still, it provided a convenient way for the Trump administration to advance its anti-asylum agenda: more than 380,000 expulsions have occurred under that authority, according to CBP’s own data.
After Cortés’ first failed attempt, his aunt Angélica García, an American citizen living in California, convinced him to go through an official port of entry and went down to Mexico to accompany him as he crossed it. “He’s not very good at talking, he’s very shy, he doesn’t present well,” he told The Daily Beast. However, they both recalled, they thought their possession of a birth certificate, a Social Security card and a christening certificate would be more than enough.
Instead, Cortes explained that once Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers realized he had been previously deported, he was taken to a separate area and aggressively questioned about his documents. “They immediately said the papers were not mine, that they would accuse me of identity theft,” Cortes said. “I said, ‘Go ahead, do it, the documents are mine.’
Although Cortes asked for his arrest in order to be able to assess his claims, he was expelled again, but not before officers confiscated all his documents, he said.
This story was supported by Garcia, who claimed that she was allowed to pass, but that she herself threatened criminal prosecution when she intervened on his behalf and tried to show the agents images of Cortés’ baptism. “[An agent] he came out and said, “You know, I could accuse you of getting people into the country illegally.” I wasn’t scared because I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong, “he said.
CBP spokesman Matthew Dyman told The Daily Beast that the agency’s record of the meeting “counteracts the narrative you’re looking for.” According to Dyman, Cortés “was unable to provide specific details of the birth certificate that was presented to the CBP agent, nor did he answer any of the questions about his alleged birth in the United States.” Dyman also stated that both of us Cortes and Garcia were expelled and wondered why Cortes would believe he might have crossed the border between ports of entry as a U.S. citizen.
While a U.S. citizenship claim does not allow people to automatically enter the country, federal policies require immigration officers to investigate potentially credible citizenship claims by detainees. A 2015 ICE policy published through an application for registrations states that the assessment of a credible citizenship claim must involve a “factual examination and legal analysis and must include a check of all available DHS [Department of Homeland Security] data systems and any other reasonable means available to the officer ”. While CBP’s policy guidelines are not publicly similar, they are likely to be substantially similar; CBP press releases have noted that field staff are “trained in document analysis.”
Both Cortés and García argue that a serious effort was made to determine the validity of their claim.
“They didn’t even try, they kicked him out so quickly. It was a question of: I don’t even know if an hour passed “, said García.
Cortés added that when he was handcuffed he began to protest. “In English, they said, ‘What’s going on?’ and I said, “Well, at least give me my papers” and it was, “No, no, we’ll get you out of here.” They punched me, I didn’t even get to talk to my aunt. “
“I’m sick of it, I felt very depressed. It is a very violent city and I lived basically on the street.”
As for document retrieval, CBP spokesman Dyman said he “would suggest investigating how to replace U.S. birth certificates if an original is lost.” The State Department referred questions about Cortes’ situation to DHS, while a White House spokesman for Biden told The Daily Beast that the new administration was reviewing the title order 42.
“We want to be able to restart and resume processing at the border and we have done so,” the White House spokesman added. “Even so, we are in a pandemic. So this, combined with the chaos and things that have been done to our immigration policies over the last four years, we are not in a place where we can turn around and make things the way they were before. “.
Since his second expulsion, Cortés has been helped by the cross-border group of legal and social services Al Otro Lado, which is trying to get him a new proof of citizenship. He remained in Tijuana for about five months in the hope that the process would be resolved quickly, but eventually returned to his mother’s hometown.
“I was fed up with it, I felt very depressed. It’s a very violent city and I basically lived on the streets, “he said.
According to Nicole Ramos, Cortés’ lawyer at Al Otro Lado, she has not gone to the consulate because they currently have little official evidence that she is a native U.S. citizen. But Cortés and his aunt have copies of some immunization records, baptism, and hospital documentation, which were reviewed by The Daily Beast (the most important originals were taken by CBP, they say). An employee of the Catholic Church of San Antonio in Padua, Los Angeles, confirmed this week that the chaplain who baptized Cortés was working there in 1991. A spokesman for LAC-USC Medical Center told The Daily Beast that the team of medical records corroborated the authenticity of the signature in a letter dated a few days after the birth of Cortés, in which it was stated that he had been born there. Neither the church nor the hospital would give specific faith that Cortes would pass through its facilities.
The initial order of Title 42 was apparently intended to protect U.S. immigration authorities and border communities from the coronavirus pandemic, but was issued by objections from CDC career personnel, some of whom were refuse to sign it. Leading public health experts have argued that there is no public health foundation in the policy, and that its use was considered illegal by the United Nations. A federal judge had prevented the government from expelling unaccompanied minors under the order, but that decision was reversed last week by a DC Circuit Court tribunal appointed by Trump. (The Biden administration has said it has no plans to expel the minors).
He Washington Post reported this week that the Mexican government had begun refusing to accept evicted children and families, but was still taking single adults. Meanwhile, an executive order signed by President Biden on Feb. 2 directed the CDC and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in consultation with DHS, to “review and quickly determine whether the resolution, termination or termination was justified. modification “of the order, but left the policy unchanged, without any specific chronology for this evaluation to take place.
Cortés now feels he wasn’t ready, but he was also determined to try it again when he was able to.
“I didn’t know anything about the laws, you know,” he said. “About how they’re supposed to protect you.”