Eric Hernandez Rodriguez said he took the wrong highway exit and accidentally crossed from San Diego to Mexico.
Now, the US government says he has been “self-declared” and has attempted to re-enter the United States illegally. He is in custody and is scheduled to be deported to El Salvador, who has not lived since he was 14 years old.
However, Hernandez-Rodriguez is currently in the detention facility at Otay Mesa. His wife is expected to give birth to her second child in California by the end of the month.
According to his lawyer Valerie Shigamani, the federal government has shown no leniency in his case. Hernandez-Rodriguez works part-time as an Uber driver, trying to unload passengers near the border, but missed his exit. He then drove to Mexico, but when he tried to return to California, he was arrested.
Shigamani estimates he left the US in less than 30 minutes.
Hernandez-Rodriguez’s position under the DACA provided some protection for immigrants that have not been documented in the past, but that changed under the Trump administration.
“DACA will not award any form of legal status in this country,” Homeland Security Deputy Director Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Illegal foreigners who are DACA recipients may be subject to arrest and deportation.”
Shigamani said her client’s DACA status should show that Hernandez Rodriguez was working in the US and was not trying to sneak in.
“At this point, there doesn’t seem to be much mercy towards people who make mistakes,” she said. “I hope that CBP agents understand and know that this is an accident and that this person had no intention of abandoning their claims, but they are good people and they accidentally left the US.”
His story was first reported by NBC News.
California has approximately 150,000 DACA recipients. Hernandez Rodriguez’s case is the latest example of the Trump administration’s hard-hit immigration policy.
Prior to his second term in office, Trump said he would “work with Democrats” to help DACA recipients stay domestically. However, once elected president, Trump quickly moved to end DACA. The programme survived slightly when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that his administration had done inappropriately.
Cases challenging the legality of DACA are expected to reach the Supreme Court, with some legal experts predicting that the conservative majority could overthrow it.
In early June, another DACA recipient, 32-year-old Javier Diaz Santana, was taken into custody while working in a car wash. Despite explaining his situation, he was taken to a federal detention facility in Texas and was given bonds by an immigration judge.
In a handwritten declaration to the court, Hernandez Rodriguez, provided to the Times by his lawyer, worked as a ride-share driver on May 31, and said he picked up the fare after the football game ended in Los Angeles. He followed his GPS instructions and it said he was approaching his exit from the highway, but he missed it. He tried to get off at the next exit, but was blocked by police due to a car accident.
He thought he had a chance to turn around, but then he was lined up to cross San Isidro’s US/Mexican border.
“I asked some Mexican officers and I explained to them what had happened,” Hernandez Rodriguez said in his declaration. “They told me they would help me so I could come back.”
The officers turned him towards the border, but he was still lost. He spoke to American officials at the border and showed them his DACA documents, and they let him pass through one checkpoint. His lawyer said he has a photo of his employment approval document allowing him to legally work in the US.
According to his declaration, border officials asked him to park his car and go to the office to check in with border officials. They took his fingerprints and placed Hernandez Rodriguez in a room with three border officers. One of the authorities said, according to his declaration and his lawyers, if he paid them $800, he could return to the United States.
Sagamani said officials are seeking bribes. Hernandez Rodriguez said he had no money.
“They told him, ‘You can call someone and ask for money, and then they can give us it,'” Shigamani said.
When it was clear he was unable to pay them, Shigamani said he put in another official handcuff and took him into custody.
In a statement, McLaughlin said, “Eric Hernandez Rodriguez, an illegal foreigner from Mexico, was self-reported and attempted to illegally re-enter the United States on June 1, 2025, and CBP officials arrested Rodriguez for illegally crossing the tropical border.”
According to a copy of his tourist visa, Hernandez Rodriguez was originally from El Salvador, not Mexico.
In response to claims that border officials had sought Hernandez Rodriguez to be bribe, McLaughlin said:
On July 14, an immigration judge ordered Hernandez Rodriguez to be removed from the country after considering the reliable and fearful determination given to asylum seekers who could face persecution in their home country based on race, religion or political opinions. Hernandez Rodriguez said he was worried that he would be chosen to discuss his political beliefs. The court believed that it had provided testimony and evidence, but Shigamani said her client could not speak to the judge.
“They haven’t even made him see the judge,” Shigamani said. “I think that’s intentional.”
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