A longtime worker at one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs was accidentally deported to Mexico after US immigration officers placed him on the wrong plane.
Federal officials have since admitted the blunder violated standard deportation procedure and likely broke the law.
Alejandro Juarez, 39, a father-of-four who spent more than a decade working at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, was supposed to be transferred to a detention facility in Arizona last month.
Instead, ICE officers shackled him, flew him to Texas, and forced him to cross a bridge into Mexico – all before he ever appeared before an immigration judge.
After being unshackled, he was handed a bag with his belongings and made to walk over the bridge the Mexico.
‘It was very hard, deported without giving me an opportunity to defend my case,’ he said. ‘And that’s how my journey in the United States ended,’ Juarez said in a phone interview from Puebla, Mexico.
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security later conceded that Juarez had been ‘removed to Mexico early because he was put on the incorrect transport.’
The mistake left his wife and four American-born children behind in New York and exposed procedural lapses within an agency under renewed pressure from the Trump administration to speed up deportations.
Alejandro Juarez, 39, a father of four and longtime worker at one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs was accidentally deported to Mexico after immigration officers placed him on the wrong plane
Juarez spent over a decade working at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, New York
Internal ICE emails reviewed by The New York Times show officials scrambling to locate Juarez after realizing he had been placed on the wrong flight.
Juarez’s case is an example of how the overburdened immigration system, rushing to meet political demands, can tear families apart in minutes.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, initially denied that Juarez had been deported claiming he was simply detained because of a 2022 DUI conviction. Only later did the agency acknowledge its error.
A DHS spokesperson explained how ICE is now arranging Juarez’s return to the United States to resume formal deportation proceedings.
Juarez’s wife, María Priego, now works double shifts as a maid in Westchester County, New York, trying to support their four 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 US Marine Corps. Their younger children, ages 10, 12, and 16, were born in America.
Juarez’s eldest son, 20, serves in the US Marine Corps. Their younger children, ages 10, 12, and 16, were born in America. He is seen here along with his wife
Juarez is pictured with other family members now he is back in Puebla, Mexico
‘My 10- and 12-year-old children ask me on the phone, ‘When are you returning, Papi?’ ‘ Juarez said. ‘We can’t be without you.’
Juarez worked for more than a decade at Trump National Golf Club Westchester, serving food and tending grounds before being fired in 2019 when the Trump Organization purged undocumented employees amid scrutiny of its hiring practices.
He continued to build a quiet life in Yorktown, working two jobs, one at a hotel and another maintaining private estates in order to support his family.
But his 2022 arrest for driving while intoxicated, with two of his children in the car, brought him to ICE’s attention. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received three years’ probation.
That offense, ICE argued, made him a ‘public safety threat.’
Yet Juarez continued to comply with every scheduled check-in at ICE’s Manhattan offices until September 15, when agents suddenly detained him.
His wife, waiting in their car outside 26 Federal Plaza, had no idea he had been taken away.
Juarez’s attorney, Aníbal Romero, learned of his client’s deportation only when Juarez called him from Mexico five days later.
‘I’m in Mexico,’ Juarez told him.
‘This is unprecedented in my 20 years of practice – an individual being removed without any hearing, leaving even the court and DHS confused,’ Romero said.
Several workers at the Trump property have been deported over the years
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported along with thousands of other illegal immigrants in March as part of Trump’s crackdown on border security
Abrego Garcia is seen hugging his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura at the ICE office in Baltimore
At Juarez’s scheduled immigration hearing in New York, Romero told the judge that his client had already been expelled. Even ICE’s lawyer admitted he didn’t know where Juarez was.
The case has amplified criticism of ICE’s chaotic internal processes under the renewed Trump administration push to accelerate deportations.
Similar blunders have surfaced before: in one case earlier this year, officials mistakenly deported Kilmar Armando Abrego García to an El Salvadoran prison; in 2022, a man was sent to Guatemala without a final removal order.
The DHS civil-rights office previously urged ICE to create a process for rectifying wrongful deportations, but advocates say little has changed.
For now, Juarez remains more than 2,500 miles away in Mexico, banished by bureaucracy and seemingly stuck there after an error ICE has reluctantly admitted.
