ITIn June, federal agents confiscated the papers of a self-proclaimed American citizen and expelled him to Mexico under a controversial CDC order, which was apparently meant to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, The Daily Beast found. And despite a series of executive actions that go back to some Trump-era immigration policies, the newly inaugurated president, Joe Biden, has left the order in force, with his administration giving no clear indication that it intends to repeal it soon.
All available evidence shows that Óscar Luis Cortes García was born in May 1991 in Los Angeles, California. When he was still a child, his mother decided to return to his hometown in the Mexican state of Colima, Cortes recently explained. He spent most of the next two decades in Mexico, but clung to the notion of one day living in the United States.
“They didn’t even try, they threw it away so fast.”
– Angelica Garcia
When the coronavirus pandemic hit and dried up all the work in his hometown, he finally decided to make the leap and make the journey, he said. But he had no notion of American immigration and border law, nor a passport, when he first tried to enter the country.
“I had so little information, what could I do,” Cortes told The Daily Beast. “I do not have the resources to go to a consulate. They later told me that the consulates were free, but I didn’t know that then. “
Assuming a citizen would be allowed anywhere along the border, Cortes said, he crossed the official ports of entry.
Shortly afterwards, Cortes was arrested with a group of undocumented migrants. He realized that he could end up presenting his identity documents when he was taken to a processing center. Instead, he was immediately fingerprinted and deported under the CDC’s Title 42 Order, which authorizes U.S. immigration personnel to immediately remove people without valid entry documents, even if they intended to seek asylum.
The status it is based on is not strictly immigration, but a public health measure designed to stop the introduction of communicable diseases into the United States. However, it provided a convenient way for the Trump administration to advance its anti-asylum agenda: more than 380,000 expulsions took place under that authority, according to CBP data.
After Cortes’ first unsuccessful attempt, his aunt Angélica García – an American citizen living in California – persuaded him to go through an official port of entry and went down to Mexico to accompany him as he passed. “She’s not very good at talking, she’s very shy, she doesn’t look good,” she told The Daily Beast. However, the two remembered, believing that possession of a birth certificate, a social security card and a baptismal certificate would be more than enough.
Instead, Cortes explained, once customs and border guards (CBP) realized he had been previously expelled, he was taken to a separate area and aggressively questioned about his documents. “They immediately said that the papers were not mine, that they wanted to accuse me of identity theft,” Cortes said. “I said, ‘Go ahead, do it, the documents are mine.'”
Even though Cortes asked to be arrested so that his claims could be further evaluated, he was expelled again – but not before agents confiscated all his documents, he said.
This account was supported by García, who claimed that she was allowed to pass, but then she herself was threatened with prosecution when she intervened on his behalf and tried to show the agents pictures of Cortes’ baptism. “[An agent] he came out and said, “You know, I could accuse you of smuggling people into the country.” I wasn’t scared because I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong, “she said.
CBP spokesman Matthew Dyman told The Daily Beast that the agency’s recording of the meeting “counteracts the narrative you’re going for.” According to Dyman, Cortes “could not provide specific details about the birth certificate that was presented to the CBP officer, nor did he answer any of the questions regarding his alleged birth in the United States.” both Cortes and García were expelled and asked why Cortes thought he could cross the border between the ports of entry as an American citizen.
While a U.S. citizenship application does not allow people to enter the country automatically, federal policies require immigration agencies to investigate potentially credible citizenship applications from those in custody. A 2015 ICE policy on this subject published in a request for evidence states that the assessment of a credible application for citizenship must involve a “factual examination and legal analysis and must include a verification of all available DHS [Department of Homeland Security] data systems and any other reasonable means available to the officer. “While CBP’s policy guidelines are not similarly public, they are likely to be substantially similar; CBP’s press releases stated that field staff are “trained in document analysis”.
Both Cortes and García dispute that any serious effort has been made to determine the validity of his claim.
“They didn’t even try, they threw him away so fast. It was a matter of – I don’t even know if an hour has passed “, said García.
Cortes added that when he was handcuffed, he began to protest. “In English, they would say, ‘What’s going on?’ And I said, “Well, at least give me back the papers,” and it was, “No, no, we’re getting you out of here.” They took me out with cuffs, I didn’t even get to talk to my aunt “.
“I was tired of it, I felt very depressed. It is a very violent city and I practically lived on the street.”
Regarding the recovery of the documentation, CBP spokesman Dyman said that “it will suggest researching how to replace US birth certificates if an original is lost.” The State Department sent back questions about Cortes’ situation to DHS, while a Biden White House spokesman told The Daily Beast that the Title 42 order was being reviewed by the new administration.
“We want to be able to resume and resume processing at the border, and that’s how we have it,” the White House spokesman added. “However, we are in a pandemic. Therefore, which, combined with the chaos and things that have been done in our immigration policies over the last four years, we are not in a place where we can change and make things the way they were before. ”
Since his second expulsion, Cortes has been assisted by the cross-border legal and social services group Al Otro Lado, which is trying to bring him new proof of citizenship. He remained in Tijuana for about five months in the hope that the process would be resolved quickly, but eventually returned to his mother’s hometown.
“I am tired of this, I feel very depressed. It is a very violent city and we practically lived on the street “, he said.
According to Nicole Ramos, Cortes’ lawyer at Al Otro Lado, he did not go to the consulate because he currently has little official evidence that he is a Native American citizen. But Cortes and his aunt have copies of immunization, baptism and hospital documents, which were reviewed by The Daily Beast (the most important originals were taken by CBP, they say). An employee of the Catholic Church of San Antonio de Padova in Los Angeles confirmed this week that the priest listed as baptizing Cortes was working there in 1991. A spokesman for LAC-USC Medical Center told The Daily Beast that the medical records team had confirmed the authenticity of the signature on a letter dated a few days after Cortes’ birth, stating that he had been born there. Neither the church nor the hospital would specifically attest that Cortes passed through their facilities.
The original Title 42 order was apparently intended to protect U.S. immigration authorities and border communities from the coronavirus pandemic, but it was issued on the objections of CDC career personnel, some of whom refused to sign. Leading public health experts have argued that there is a public health justification for the policy, and its use has been deemed illegal by the United Nations. A federal judge has barred the government from expelling unaccompanied minors under the order, but that decision was overturned last week by a Trump circuit court panel appointed by Trump. (The Biden administration has said it has no plans to expel minors.)
Washington Post reported this week that the Mexican government began refusing to accept expelled children and families, but still took single adults. Meanwhile, an executive order signed by President Biden on Feb. 2 called on the CDC and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in consultation with DHS, to “promptly review and determine whether the termination, cancellation or amendment” of the order was justified, but left the policy unchanged without a specific timetable for that evaluation to take place.
Cortes now feels as if he has not been prepared – but also determined to try again when he is able.
“I didn’t know anything about laws, you know,” he said. “About how they should protect you.”