Judge orders the immediate release of El Paso DACA recipient

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EL PASO — A federal judge ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday to immediately release 28-year-old Catalina “Xochitl” Santiago, a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for two decades, because she is protected from deportation under DACA.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, a Bush appointee in El Paso, said in her ruling that Santiago’s detainment “deprives her of her constitutional right to procedural due process under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The Trump administration “did not present any evidence indicating that Santiago has endangered anyone during her twenty years at liberty, including her thirteen years under DACA. Tellingly, they have failed to even articulate an individualized reason for which she should be detained,” Cardone wrote.

Cardone gave ICE until 4 p.m. Thursday to release Santiago and to notify the judge by noon Friday of the time and day Santiago was released.

Santiago, who moved from Mexico to Florida with her parents and brother when she was 8 years old, was detained by Border Patrol agents on Aug. 8 at the El Paso airport on her way to Austin. She was on her way to a work-related conference with her wife, Desiree Miller, a U.S. citizen whom Santiago married earlier this year.

Since then, immigration officials have held her in custody at a local ICE facility.

ICE agents started deportation proceedings shortly after, but an immigration judge ruled in September that she can’t be deported because she has protection from removal through DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — a 2012 program that allows young immigrants who came to the U.S. as children without legal immigration status to get a renewable two-year work permit as long as they don’t commit any serious or violent crimes. More than 500,000 immigrants are currently enrolled in DACA.

In Santiago’s case, immigration officials have approved her DACA renewal seven times. Her most current renewal will expire in April 2026.

ICE didn’t release her and instead appealed the immigration judge’s ruling to the federal court.

Previously, immigration officials cited a 2020 arrest in Arizona as a reason to detain her. Santiago faced charges of trespassing, possession of narcotics and drug paraphernalia, but Graham County Attorney L. Scott Bennett, the Arizona prosecutor whose office reviewed the case in 2021, said his office didn’t prosecute Santiago because of “insufficient information.”

Separately, Santiago’s legal team challenged her continued detention in a different federal court after the immigration judge ruled that she can’t be deported.

During a Sept. 23 court hearing, Stephanie Norton, a lawyer for Santiago, argued that Border Patrol agents should have never arrested Santiago in the first place because her DACA status is still valid. Norton also said that if immigration officials truly believed she should have been deported, they would not have renewed her DACA status seven times.

Norton pointed out that in 2022, Santiago was allowed to return to the U.S. after a study abroad program. They also said that Santiago plans to start the process of getting permanent legal status — also known as a green card — because she may qualify after marrying a U.S. citizen.

Lacy McAndrew, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice representing ICE, said in court that Santiago can’t be deported because she has DACA, but the government can hold her and deport her after her DACA expires next year.

McAndrew also said the government has the authority to strip DACA recipients of their legal protection from deportation.

“There’s nothing preventing ICE from seeking a removal order,” McAndrew said, adding that Santiago could fight deportation after her DACA expires and removal proceedings begin.

National immigrant rights advocates say they have found about 20 cases of DACA recipients being detained for deportation since Trump began his second term on Jan. 20.

Among them is another El Paso area DACA recipient, Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira, a 27-year-old father of four U.S. citizens. On Aug. 13, ICE agents arrested Gamez in his driveway in Horizon City, a city just east of El Paso and took him to a private immigrant detention facility in southern New Mexico.

U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson of Albuquerque ordered his release on Sept. 24 after his lawyers argued that he should not have been arrested because his DACA status protects him from deportation.

For years, DACA recipients felt relatively safe from deportation. The program was meant to give young immigrants without a criminal record temporary protection until Congress could approve legislation that would create a permanent solution. Thirteen years after its creation, Congress has not approved such legislation and the Trump administration has prioritized cracking down on undocumented immigrants this year.

The administration has said it is targeting the “worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants, highlighting the arrest of those convicted of rape, pedophilia or other violent crimes. But government data shows that the vast majority of the more than 70,000 immigrants detained as of August don’t have a criminal record, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that collects and analyzes federal government data.

The Trump administration has also tried to dismantle DACA, which it has called illegal. So far, federal courts have kept the program in place for current recipients.

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