Following recent arrests involving Venezuelan doctors in Texas, immigration authorities are facing renewed scrutiny after reports that a 25-year-old U.S. citizen was detained and deported to Mexico earlier this month.
Brian José Morales García says he was born in Denver but raised in Mexico and was living and working in Texas at the time of his arrest. He was pulled over near Fredericksburg, about 70 miles north of San Antonio, for a window tint violation, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
In a statement, the agency said the trooper requested assistance from local deputies and police officers to translate for Morales and another passenger. When Morales could not immediately provide identification or proof of citizenship, officers contacted immigration authorities, who instructed them to hold the men.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Morales said he repeatedly told officers he was a U.S. citizen and offered to retrieve his birth certificate and Social Security card from his home in Austin, but was not given the opportunity.
Morales, who has dual citizenship in Mexico and does not speak English, was booked into the Gillespie County Jail before being transferred to U.S. Border Patrol custody.
He said he was held for five days and, fearing prolonged detention, signed documents agreeing to expedited removal so he could return to his wife and newborn daughter in Mexico.
"Eventually I told them what they wanted to hear because I wanted to speed up the process," Morales said.
Morales and his attorney later provided documents to The Texas Tribune, including a Social Security card, a birth certificate showing he was born in Denver, and hospital records confirming his birth.
Despite that, the Department of Homeland Security maintains Morales is not a U.S. citizen and said he admitted to entering the country illegally.
"Agents determined Morales-Garcia was illegally in the U.S. through record checks," the agency told Univision, who first reported his arrest and deportation. "He also admitted he is a Mexican national and entered the country illegally."
Morales disputes that account, saying agents pressured him into making false statements.
"They told me I could go to prison, so I just said I entered illegally," he said.
Morales said he was transferred between five facilities before signing deportation paperwork and being flown to Tabasco, Mexico.
"As a U.S. citizen, how can they treat me like this just because I only speak Spanish?" he said. "I want them to take responsibility."
His case is not isolated. As noted by The Texas Tribune, a 2021 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, immigration authorities arrested 674 potential U.S. citizens, detained 121 and deported 70 between 2015 and 2020.
A separate investigation by ProPublica last year found that more than 170 U.S. citizens were detained by immigration agents during the first nine months of the second Trump administration, though it did not identify confirmed deportations during that period.
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