Activists demand return of DACA recipient deported from US to Mexico

Activists are calling on the US government to bring Jessica Treviño Villegas back from Mexico, asserting she was deported despite being a mother of three US citizens and a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Her case is part of a trend of increasing deportations of DACA recipients.

Treviño Villegas's lawyers have filed a petition with the federal court in the Southern District of Texas, demanding her "immediate return." They argue that she held protected status until April 2027 but was deported last March. The Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) organization accused the Trump administration of detaining and deporting "hundreds" of DACA beneficiaries, a program established by the Obama administration to protect immigrants who arrived as children. LUPE stated that nearly half a million DACA recipients are now "under threat."

Treviño Villegas, who came to the US from Mexico at age seven, lived in Alamo, Texas, where she raised her three US citizen children, aged 16, 14, and 13. Her family has been separated "through no fault of their own," according to LUPE. Her defense team emphasized that she worked in her community and diligently renewed her DACA status every two years, yet she was deported despite complying with all government requirements.

Following her expulsion to Mexico, US authorities terminated her DACA status, citing "unauthorized travel" outside the United States. However, her lawyers contend she was deported, an action the judge must rectify. Tania Chávez, president of LUPE, stated, "Jessica did not leave the country of her own volition. She was violently detained and illegally deported. The same agency that manufactured this chaos in Jessica's life now threatens to cause even more harm by stripping her of her DACA protections. It is cruel, it is illegal, and we cannot normalize this."

Recent figures from the Department of Homeland Security indicate that between January 1 and November 19, 2025, at least 261 DACA recipients were arrested and 86 were deported by ICE during Trump's second term, despite the program's protections.