A longtime worker at one of President Donald Trump’s golf clubs was mistakenly deported to Mexico after U.S. immigration officers placed him on the wrong plane.
Alejandro Juarez, 39, a father of four, had worked at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, for more than a decade. He was scheduled for transfer to a detention facility in Arizona last month.
Instead, ICE agents shackled Juarez, flew him to Texas, and forced him to cross a bridge into Mexico before he ever appeared before an immigration judge.
“It was very hard, deported without giving me an opportunity to defend my case,” Juarez told reporters from Puebla, Mexico. “And that’s how my journey in the United States ended.”
The Department of Homeland Security later admitted the error, saying Juarez had been “removed to Mexico early because he was put on the incorrect transport.”
The mistake left Juarez’s wife and four U.S.-born children behind in New York and highlighted procedural lapses within ICE as the agency faces pressure to speed up deportations.
Internal ICE emails reviewed by The New York Times showed officials scrambling to locate Juarez after realizing he had been sent to the wrong destination.
A DHS spokesperson said ICE is now arranging Juarez’s return to the U.S. to resume formal deportation proceedings, per the Daily Mail.
Juarez’s wife, María Priego, now works double shifts as a maid in Westchester County to support their children alone. “We’re sad and devastated for what my husband has gone through,” she said. “We depended a lot on him and are waiting for any good news from our lawyer.”
Their eldest son, 20, serves in the U.S. Marine Corps. The younger children, ages 10, 12, and 16, were born in America. “My 10- and 12-year-old children ask me on the phone, ‘When are you returning, Papi?’ We can’t be without you,” Juarez said.
Juarez had been fired from the Trump club in 2019 during a purge of undocumented employees, but continued to work other jobs to support his family. His 2022 DUI arrest, which included two of his children in the car, brought him to ICE’s attention.
He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received three years’ probation. ICE labeled him a “public safety threat” despite his compliance with all check-ins until September 15, when agents suddenly detained him.
Juarez’s attorney, Aníbal Romero, only learned of the deportation when Juarez called from Mexico five days later. “I’m in Mexico,” Juarez told him.
Romero said, “This is unprecedented in my 20 years of practice—an individual being removed without any hearing, leaving even the court and DHS confused.”
The case has drawn criticism of ICE’s internal processes under the Trump administration’s push to accelerate deportations. Similar blunders occurred earlier this year when Kilmar Armando Abrego García was mistakenly deported to an El Salvadoran prison.
