A Mexican man who had sued the Trump administration, alleging he had been unlawfully deported, was arrested this week and charged with illegally re-entering the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reports. Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez, 23, was arrested near Calexico, Ca., along the Mexican border. Montes, who dropped the lawsuit in October, will likely be deported, and he could face as long as two years in prison if found to have illegally re-entered the U.S. after being deported. He could also be barred from coming back to the U.S. for years.
Montes’ suit alleged that Border Patrol agents had arrested and deported him in February even though he had been protected from deportation under the Obama era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. U.S. Homeland Security officials said Montes returned to Mexico voluntarily, which caused him to lose his DACA privileges. Montes was thought to be the first DACA recipient deported by the Trump administration. Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a top priority of his administration. In September the Trump administration announced plans to end the DACA program, which has protected from deportation hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.