Summary

Immigration officials detained a US citizen for nearly 10 days in Arizona, according to court records and press reports.

On 8 April, a border patrol official found Hermosillo “without the proper immigration documents” and claimed that the young American had admitted entering the US illegally from Mexico.

On 17 April, a federal judge dismissed his case. “He did say he was a US citizen, but they didn’t believe him.”

“Under the Trump administration’s theory of the law, the government could have banished this U.S. citizen to a Salvadoran prison then refused to do anything to bring him back,” Mark Joseph Stern, a legal analyst for Slate, wrote on Bluesky. “This is why the Constitution guarantees due process to all. Could it be more obvious?”