A Maryland woman has been released and reunited with her family after spending 25 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody – despite her attorneys saying documentation showed she was born in the US and therefore is a citizen.
Dulce Consuelo Díaz Morales and her legal team maintain she was born in the US and possess records supporting that claim. ICE, however, had disputed this, asserting she is a Mexican citizen who entered the US unlawfully.
According to Díaz Morales, ICE agents detained her near her home on 14 December while her family watched. She told the DC, Maryland and Virginia news outlet WRC-TV that she attempted to explain she was born in Maryland – but said authorities did not accept her explanation. She added that her faith and the hope of reuniting with her family helped her endure the detention.
Díaz Morales said she lived in Mexico starting at age seven and returned to the US more than a year and a half ago. She believes confusion arose because she used her mother’s last name while living in Mexico, whereas US records list both her father’s and mother’s last names.