LAUREL, Md. — After missing both Christmas and New Year’s while stuck in ICE detention, Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, a U.S. Citizen, has been reunited with her family.
Her lawyers say that despite providing primary documentation to prove her citizenship status to the Department of Homeland Security, including a Maryland birth certificate, hospital records from Laurel Regional Hospital, medical affidavits and immunization records, Diaz Morales spent 25 days in ICE custody.
“We are very relieved that she is at last back home,” attorney Zachary Perez told WMAR-2 News’ Blair Sabol.
25 days later: U.S. Citizen released from ICE custody
Diaz Morales was transferred five times over the course of three weeks, to facilities in Baltimore, Louisiana, Texas and finally New Jersey. Two members of the legal team at Sanabria and Associates helped to return the young mother home on Wednesday.
Her sister, Sirley Diaz, told reporters last month that the pair were leaving a Taco Bell in Baltimore City on December 14, when they saw police and pulled over.
It turned out to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
DHS claimed that Diaz Morales, referring to her under a slightly different name “Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz” is an illegal alien from Mexico and stated that she did not provide evidence to support U.S. citizenship.
The agency pointed out an encounter in 2023 where she stated she was a Mexican citizen when speaking with Border Patrol near Lukeville, Arizona.
Dulce Martinez, who many years in Mexico as a child, returned to the United States during an emergency without access to documentation, according to her attorneys. They believe she was mistakenly processed as a non-citizen, given a number and placed into removal proceedings.
"The government has effectively shifted the burden onto United States citizens to affirmatively prove their citizenship while incarcerated," Diaz Morales' counsel shared in a statement. "If this becomes normalized, any citizen who lacks immediate access to paperwork and professional counsel becomes vulnerable to incarceration first and verification later."
"Unfortunately, we are not in normal times," Ama Frimpong, CASA's legal director said. "This is a pattern in which ICE's m.o. at this point is to arrest first and ask questions later in their effort to further their mass detention agenda."
Diaz Morales' attorneys have raised other concerns about her confinement, which they say included denial of access to counsel, conditions that were "deeply troubling", uncertainty and prolonged detention.
A medical expert, they report, reviewed Diaz Morales' records and confirmed that they both support continuity of care as an infant and her claim of citizenship.
In December, Sirley Diaz says the ICE officers that stopped her and her sister never identified themselves nor explained the reason for the detainment, only stating that they would be taking Diaz Morales because she was older in age.
At one point, during limited communications with her family, Diaz Morales indicated she was fearful she’d be deported.
Her lawyers have pointed out, however, that that risk still exists at this time.
"She remains under ICE supervision and, because DHS opposed counsel's motion and has refused to terminate, she still faces the threat of deportation," a statement from counsel reads. "Until her proceedings are formally corrected and safeguards are enforced, Dulce’s freedom remains conditional."
DHS has not immediately responded to a request for comment at this time.
