Illegal immigrant hailed by Democrats deported under Clinton, re-arrested under Obama

An illegal immigrant featured in a video on the third night of the Democratic National Convention was first deported in 1998 under former President Bill Clinton and was re-arrested and ordered deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2013 under former President Barack Obama,  U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement officials said Thursday.

Alejandra Juarez successfully re-entered the U.S. illegally at an unknown time after her first deportation, according to ICE. She was arrested again in 2013. She ultimately left the U.S. on a commercial flight in 2018 under President Trump.

During the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday evening, Juarez’s story was part of an immigration segment where her 11-year-old daughter Estela read a letter she wrote to Trump criticizing him for deporting her mother, who first came to the U.S. illegally in 1998 and lied to a U.S. border agent about her immigration status. According to ICE, after Juarez was deported, she attempted to re-enter the U.S. again "by falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen but then withdrew her application." 

A traffic stop that occurred in Florida in 2013 brought her back into ICE custody when Obama was president. 

An ICE spokesperson confirmed that a "reinstatement of removal" was issued after Juarez was re-arrested in 2013 because she was previously deported. After that, a “temporary stay of removal” was granted in 2015 and 2016 that prevented the deportation from being carried out. ICE said that an additional “temporary stay of removal” was not approved in 2017 and Juarez left the country via a commercial flight in 2018.

The full details of her arrests under Democratic presidents were excluded from the moving video played at the DNC's convention.

The DNC said in a press release that Juarez “married a proud American Marine with whom she had two American children.”

According to an ICE statement about the Juarez case in 2018, ICE "respects the service and sacrifice of those in the military and the families who support them, and is very deliberate in its review of cases associated with veterans and active-duty service members. Any action taken by ICE that may result in the removal of an individual with military service must be authorized by the senior leadership in a field office, following an evaluation by local counsel.”

In the segment, Estela said her father won’t vote for Trump again. Juarez was not eligible to earn citizenship through her husband, a naturalized U.S. citizen, because someone who enters the U.S. illegally is generally not able to apply for legal status.

The Juarez story appeared during the same night Obama addressed the convention.

During the Juarez segment on Wednesday night, Estela claimed Trump put children in cages. Former First Lady Michelle Obama mentioned on Tuesday at the convention that children have been put in cages at the border under the Trump administration.

However, the Associated Press has reported that the kids in cages line of attack is misleading because immigration authorities “used facilities that were built during the Obama-Biden administration to house children at the border.”

Data as of July 2019 showed that ICE under Obama had actually deported more illegal immigrants in his first term than Trump.

Here's the video that aired during Democratic convention night 3: