CALEXICO, Calif. – An immigrant who had been shielded from deportation but was sent back to Mexico has been arrested for returning to the United States for the second time this year, authorities said Wednesday.
Juan Manuel Montes, 23, was taken into custody near Calexico for illegally re-entering the United States late Monday night, the U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement.
Montes was spotted by agents just north of a border fence, and ran from them for about 200 yards before laying down. He then attempted to get up again and run, but was quickly caught, the Border Patrol said.
According to his lawyers, Montes was the first-known participant in the five-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to be deported under President Donald Trump.
The program — which Trump announced in September he was ending — gave work permits and deportation protection to nearly 800,000 immigrants in the country illegally who were brought here as children. Its participants are sometimes known as "dreamers."
Montes claimed that he was wrongly expelled in February from the United States, but the administration said he left the country voluntarily, causing him to lose his protected status under the program.
Montes, who came to the United States when he was 9, has a cognitive disability that likely stems from a childhood brain injury, according to his lawyers.
"Border Patrol Agents will always stop, detain, and arrest anyone making an illegal entry into the country irrespective of their immigration or citizenship status," the agency's statement said.
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