The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday released a Maryland woman who was held for 25 days despite evidence that her lawyers say proves she was born in the United States and is a citizen.
Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, 22, walked out of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center Wednesday afternoon in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she was met by members of her legal team, according to one of her lawyers, Victoria Slatton.
“We were afraid that it wasn’t really going to happen, and then when we saw her, it was very surreal and we were really, really happy,” Slatton said in an interview. “There was a lot of tearing up.”
Slatton said the case against Diaz Morales has not yet been dismissed by the government and she could still face deportation proceedings. But Slatton is confident that there is more than enough evidence in her client’s favor.
“She is a U.S. citizen. She was born here. I think that we’ve presented more than enough evidence, but we will continue to fight it until every single court accepts and acknowledges it,” she said.
Though she was relieved to see her client freed, Slatton said that the lengthy detention was unwarranted and unnecessary, and that evidence establishing Diaz Morales is a citizen was provided to the government within days of her arrest.
“I am extremely happy that she was released today, and I hope that she is never taken into custody again,” Slatton said. “But I also want it known that she was in custody for 25 days, and it should not take as much evidence as we submitted or as much of a fight as we had for a U.S. citizen to be released from custody.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its decision to release Diaz Morales on Wednesday.
Diaz Morales was arrested by ICE agents in Baltimore on Dec. 14 while she was leaving a Taco Bell with her younger sister. Her sister said Diaz Morales told the agents she was a U.S. citizen.
DHS, using a different last name for Diaz Morales, said after her arrest that she was in the U.S. illegally.
“Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz is NOT a U.S. citizen — she is an illegal alien from Mexico,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement emailed to The Washington Post in December. “She did NOT provide a valid U.S. birth certificate or any evidence in support of her claim that she is a U.S. citizen. On Dec. 14, ICE arrested this illegal alien in Baltimore. On Oct. 20, 2023, when CBP encountered her near Lukeville, Arizona, Madrigal-Diaz claimed she was a citizen of Mexico and was born on Oct. 18, 2003.”
Four days after her arrest, a Maryland district court judge barred the government from deporting Diaz Morales while the court considered a petition from her lawyers challenging the detention.
According to her lawyers, Diaz Morales moved from the U.S. to Mexico with her family in 2009 or 2010 and returned in 2023 to escape cartel violence. They said she was stopped by immigration officers when she reentered the U.S. In January, she received a removal order from the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
During her 25-day detainment, Diaz Morales was transferred often and held in five detention centers in Maryland, Louisiana, Texas and, finally, New Jersey. Her lawyers were only able to speak to her twice during her detention, Slatton said.
On Tuesday, Diaz Morales’s lawyers filed additional documents with EOIR to support their client’s citizenship claim, including hospital records from her birth that included her footprints and her mother’s fingerprints. They also provided clearer versions of her Maryland birth certificate and immunization records, which they had previously provided to the court and DHS.
The new filing included an extensive analysis of all of Diaz Morales’s birth and immunization records by C. Nicholas Cuneo, an assistant professor of pediatrics and medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“While a few discrepancies exist, such as variations in recorded birth weights and the absence of first and middle names on the birth certificate, these can often be attributed to routine clerical practices and, in the case of the incomplete birth certificate, potential language barriers faced by non-native English speakers navigating a bureaucratic state records system,” Cuneo wrote in his assessment. “Overall, the documents reviewed not only suggest Ms. Diaz Morales’s continuity of care as an infant, but they also substantially support her claim of being a U.S. citizen born in Maryland.”
On Wednesday evening, Diaz Morales was being driven home to Maryland by her lawyers. She said she was looking forward to seeing her 5-year-old son and the rest of her family.
“Now that I am free, I feel much better, but while I was detained, the lows were really low and I felt very sad, but I thank God now it’s over,” Diaz Morales said, speaking in Spanish with her lawyer interpreting. “I want to hug my son first and then my family.”
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