Federal agents arrested Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales on her way home in Baltimore, Maryland.

A family in Maryland is trying to find a woman arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose attorneys say is an American citizen but the government insists is Mexican.

Agents arrested Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, 22, on December 14 in Baltimore while she was heading home with her sister.

Despite her saying she was born in the U.S., she was held in ICE custody after failing to prove citizenship, the agency said. Attorneys rushed to get a court order keeping her in Maryland, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved her to Louisiana anyway.

Her family has now been told she has been deported, despite U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson ruling Thursday that she could not be deported pending a hearing. Perez and colleague Victoria Slatten said they had not been able to confirm Diaz Morales’ whereabouts.

  • [鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma]|[alt: 黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui]@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    5 hours ago

    My wife was adopted by naturalized citizens

    Relevent: Korean Adoptees that got deported because their stupid adoptive parents didn’t file paperworks.

    Prior to the passage of the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, the adoptive parents of adoptees had to file for their child to naturalize before the age of 16. Many parents were unaware of this requirement, assuming that their adopted children automatically derived citizenship from them, and therefore did not apply. The Child Citizenship Act sought to remedy this issue by extending citizenship to all international adoptees who were under 18 at the time that the bill was passed, but did not apply retroactively.

    Under the Child Citizenship Act, intercountry adopted children do not qualify for acquired citizenship through their adoptive parents if they were 18 years or older on February 27, 2001, the effective date of the act. If these adoptees never naturalized while they were children, they did not become United States citizens and remain at risk for deportation unless they naturalized later as adults.