A New Mexico man’s family had to show his birth certificate at an Arizona prison before they’d let him go. And now, Homeland Security has the gall to claim it was all his fault.
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- Officials detained Jose Hermosillo, a U.S. citizen, for 9 days in Arizona.
- A Homeland Security official claims that Hermosillo admitted to illegally entering the U.S.
- Hermosillo isn’t the first U.S. citizen caught in Trump’s deportation dragnet.
We interrupt the ongoing story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father mistakenly deported to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists, to introduce Jose Hermosillo, the New Mexico father held for nine days in an Arizona ICE prison.
This, despite the fact that he’s an American citizen.
There’s a lot that isn’t yet known about how Hermosillo came to be cooling his heels in a private Florence prison leased to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants who are here illegally. But from the sound of it, he’s lucky he didn’t wake up rubbing elbows with terrorists in El Salvador.
Hermosillo, 19, who lives in Albuquerque with his girlfriend and baby, was in Tucson visiting friends when he was arrested by the Border Patrol “at or near Nogales” on April 8.
According to the criminal complaint, Hermosillo “admitted to illegally entering the United States of America from Mexico on or about April 7, 2025.”
But during an initial appearance on April 10, Hermosillo told a judge that he’s U.S. citizen.
It took 9 days to learn he was a citizen?
It would take another week before he was set free.
Surely, a Trump administration intent on ridding the country of every last landscaper and construction worker in the country illegally shouldn’t need nine days to figure out the person they’ve imprisoned for the crime of being “without the proper immigration documents” is an American citizen.
Yet it would take his family, tracking down where he was being held and showing up with his birth certificate and Social Security card, to secure his release on April 17.
If ICE isn’t relying on government databases to figure out who is a citizen and who is not, then what, exactly, are its agents relying on as they sweep people off the streets?
Is it the clothes they wear? The tattoos they sport?
The way they look or talk?
Feds say this was Jose Hermosillo’s fault
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant director of Homeland Security, said on April 21 that Hermosillo’s arrest was his own fault.
“On April 8, Hermosillo approached Border Patrol in Tucson and stated he had entered the U.S. illegally through Nogales,” she said on X. “He said he wanted to turn himself in and completed a sworn statement identifying as a Mexican citizen who had entered unlawfully.”
Actually, the complaint says he was arrested “at or near Nogales.”
“He was processed and appeared in court on April 11. Afterward, he was held by the U.S. Marshals in Florence, AZ. A few days later, his family presented documents showing U.S. citizenship. The charges were dismissed, and he was released to his family.”
“A few days” meaning … more than a week? It took nine days altogether to verify his citizenship?
He’s not the first American to face deportation
Arizona Public Media, which broke the story, reported that Hermosillo says he has never been to Nogales.
Hermosillo isn’t the first U.S. citizen caught up in Trump’s immigration dragnet. He wasn’t even the first last week.
On April 16, a Georgia-born man was in a car pulled over for speeding while on his way to a construction job in Florida. Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, 20, was held overnight on a charge of being an “unauthorized alien.”
As with Hermosillo, a senior DHS official insisted that it was the young man’s own fault.
“After a stop by a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper, a dual citizen of Mexico and the U.S. was detained after he said that he was in the U.S. ILLEGALLY. Immediately after learning the individual was a United State citizen, he was released,” the official told CNN.
“When individuals admit to committing a crime, like entering the country illegally, they will of course be detained while officers investigate.”
What are the odds that 2 men said the same thing?
Lopez-Gomez speaks an Indigenous language and is not fluent in English or Spanish.
At least, he spent only a night in ICE prison.
For Hermosillo, who speaks both English and Spanish, it was nine days behind bars.
“This arrest was the direct result of Hermosillo’s own actions and statements,” McLaughlin insists.
Curious, isn’t it, that in the course of nine days, two U.S. citizens would claim to be in the country illegally?
What are the odds?
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz, on Threads at @LaurieRobertsaz and on BlueSky at @laurieroberts.bsky.social.
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