A mother of three who was deported to Mexico despite having permission to live in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has filed a lawsuit against the federal government. The government notified her that her DACA status, which allows her to temporarily remain in the U.S. and obtain work permits, is being terminated due to "unauthorized travel" stemming from her deportation.

Jessica Treviño, 34, arrived in the U.S. at age 7 and received DACA status at age 20. Her legal permission to stay and work was most recently authorized until April 2027. According to her attorney, David Rozas, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent her a notice of intent to terminate her status for "unauthorized travel outside of the United States on or about March 25, 2026." This date coincides with her deportation from the country by the Department of Homeland Security.

Treviño and her husband were arrested in December after being followed into a Home Depot parking lot in South Texas. Both were subsequently deported and are currently living in Matamoros, Mexico. Their three children, all U.S. citizens, remain with family in the U.S. near the border.

While an immigration judge had issued a voluntary departure order for Treviño in February while she was in ICE custody, her valid DACA status should have prevented her deportation. Her attorney filed a petition in federal court asking a judge to declare her expulsion unlawful, order the government to facilitate her return to the U.S., and allow her DACA status to remain valid.

"The government had no lawful basis to remove her, and we filed this petition to demand she be brought back home," Rozas stated. Treviño expressed her desperation to return to her children, who are set to start school next month.

Advocates for DACA recipients view Treviño's case as part of a broader pattern. Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an organization defending immigration rights, characterized it as "a deliberate, systematic effort to destroy DACA in practice: target recipients one by one, manufacture justifications after the fact, and leave their children to grow up without them."

According to a February letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the Trump administration had deported 86 DACA recipients and arrested 241 others.