US Border Patrol police wrongfully detain 19-year-old American citizen for nearly 10 days

US immigration officials detained a 19-year-old American citizen in Arizona for nearly 10 days. The NPR affiliate Arizona Public Media reported that Jose Hermosillo, a New Mexico resident visiting Arizona, was detained by the state’s border patrol agents in Nogales. The city is located along the Mexican border and is known for illegal infiltration in the region.

According to a border patrol criminal complaint dated April 8, the immigration official found Hermosillo “without the proper immigration documents” and claimed that the young American had admitted to entering the US illegally from Mexico. Two days later, the federal court documents noted that Hermosillo continued to claim he was a US citizen. The case was eventually dismissed on April 17 by the federal court, and Hermosillo was freed from detention.

The 19-year-old boy’s wrongful arrest and prolonged detention came at a time when the US President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing sweeping crackdowns on immigration. The measures of the White House have emboldened immigration officers to arrest and deport undocumented people, including foreign students whose visas have been revoked, leading to a series of errors.

The family was shocked by the arrest

As per the report, Hermosillo was visiting the Tucson area from Albuquerque and got lost without identification. His girlfriend’s family made numerous calls looking for him before they discovered that he was arrested and was being held at the Florence Correctional Centre, a privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. According to the court docket, after his arrest, Hermosillo was detained in the custody of US marshals.

His family eventually tracked him down and provided officials with his birth certificate and social security card. “He did say he was a US citizen, but they didn’t believe him,” Hermosillo’s girlfriend’s aunt told AZPM. “I think they would have kept him. I think they would have if they had not got that information yesterday in the court, and given that to ICE and the border patrol. He probably would have been deported already to Mexico," he added.

Ever since Trump returned to the White House, there have been rising instances of US citizens getting arrested by immigration officials. However, immigration officials’ detention of citizens is not new, and it has taken place across presidential administrations.

In 2021, the Government Accountability Office found that from 2015 through 2020, ICE arrested 674 US citizens and deported 70 of them. From 2007 through 2015, 818 US citizens were held in immigration detention, according to a 2016 analysis from NPR.

With inputs from agencies.