A Maryland mother was reunited with her family after 25 days in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Dulce Consuelo Díaz Morales and her lawyers say she was born in the U.S. and has documentation to prove it. ICE says she’s a Mexican citizen who entered the U.S. illegally.
News4 has covered the 22-year-old mother’s story from the start and spoke with her at home in Baltimore on Thursday. Díaz Morales said her faith and her hope to see her family again sustained her.
Video shows the emotional moment she finally embraced her 5-year-old son.
“Mama! Mama!” the little boy shouted as he ran into her arms.
“I felt very happy, very excited to see my son again,” Díaz Morales said in Spanish.
She said she was detained by ICE agents near her home, in front of her family, on Dec. 14.
“They told me, ‘Get out of the car. You’re under arrest,’” she recalled.
She said she tried to explain that she was born in Maryland, but they didn’t believe her.
Dulce Díaz said she lived in Mexico from age 7 and returned to the U.S. more than a year-and-a-half ago. She said she believes there was a misunderstanding because in Mexico she used her mother’s last names, but in the U.S. she’s listed as having her father and mother’s last names.
Her legal team said she entered the U.S. during an emergency without the proper documentation and was processed by authorities as an immigrant, which placed her in deportation proceedings. It’s something her attorneys say was a mistake.
“From the very start of this, we had substantial proof that Dulce was born here and her first steps were taken on American soil. Her first words were spoken in America. And despite all of that, the slowness we’ve seen from the government, the reluctance to admit that they had made an error, a costly and dire error,” said attorney Zachary Pérez.
He said attorneys submitted her birth certificate and other documentation that they say proved she’s a U.S. citizen. But it still wasn’t enough to get her released from ICE custody.
“In my years now of being an immigration attorney, I have never had to go this far for a case. What we were finally able to get and what we worked on getting was a lengthy affidavit from a medical professional, a doctor who described why the birth certificate was authentic,” Pérez said.
The attorney said that analysis of the documents led to an ICE official telling him this week that Dulce Díaz would be released from custody. But it doesn’t mean her legal battle is over. Her attorneys say she remains under ICE supervision. They said the Department of Homeland Security continues to challenge in federal court the claim that she is a U.S. citizen and she still faces the threat of deportation.
“I still feel nervous. I feel very nervous,” she said.
She said she has faith that what she called her personal nightmare will be over soon.
“It’s going to be a triumph for me and a bitter pill to swallow for them,” she said.
News4 contacted ICE and asked about the conditions of Dulce Díaz’s release. We have not heard back. In a previous statement to News4 in December, the agency said: “Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz is NOT a U.S. citizen–she is an illegal alien from Mexico. She did NOT provide a U.S. birth certificate or any evidence in support of her claim that she is a U.S. citizen.”
Dulce Díaz said she has dual citizenship with Mexico and is in the process of obtaining her U.S. passport. She has a check-in with immigration authorities scheduled for Tuesday. She said she’ll be accompanied by her legal team.
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