CIUDAD JUAREZ -- A birth certificate is a basic document used to determine citizenship but it was not enough to keep Luis Jaquez in the United States.
"They deported me," said Jaquez, 24 who is now living in a small house on a dirt street with his mother and other siblings in Anapra, a border community on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
Jaquez believes he belongs back in El Paso, "because I'm a US citizen. I'm not a Mexican."
For years he used his U.S. birth certificate to come back and forth across the border until last October when he was arrested at an international bridge on fraud charges.
The authenticity of his birth certificate is not in question but the government alleged it was obtained fraudulently. A federal court ruled in his favor and a jury acquitted Jaquez on February 24th but Jaquez was sent back to Mexico two days later.
"I'm sure if you were to talk to the jurors they would be surprised to know my client is back in Mexico," said Sergio Garcia, the public defender who represented Jaquez.
"How is it having a valid birth certificate and a judgment of acquittal is not enough?" said Garcia.
"Because of privacy concerns, CBP does not typically discuss encounters with individuals seeking entry to the United States," according to a statement emailed by Roger Maier, the agency's spokesperson in El Paso.
"CBP officers are diligent, thorough and resourceful in their efforts to determine that a person presenting themselves for entry to the U.S. is in fact legally admissible," according to the statement from Maier.
The red flag may be the birth certificate that shows Jaquez was born at home in El Paso. That became a problem when his mother applied for a US passport for him in 2009. At the time Jaquez was a minor and the U.S. government that year required every American who wanted to leave and return to the country to have a passport.
Jaquez recalls the application was rejected by the U.S. Consulate in Juarez and says his mother was pressured to sign a document admitting he was born in Mexico "or she would go to jail."
A few years earlier a group of midwives elsewhere the border in the Rio Grande Valley had plead guilty to selling birth certificates to non-citizens. That cast suspicion on anyone claiming a home birth and many with U.S. birth certificates were not able to get passports, denied re-entry to the country or subject to removal.The ACLU report "American Exile" found a majority of people subject to "expedited removals" at the border are handled by CBP officers or Border Patrol agents and do not go before an immigration judge.
Even after his passport was denied, Jaquez continued to use his birth certificate and a Texas Department of Public Safety ID card to cross the border until he was detained last fall.
"He has only one birth certificate that says he's from U.S. And he should be here," said Garcia, his public defender.
Jaquez does not have a Mexican birth certificate and when his mother returned to Ciudad Juarez with him as a child, she registered Jaquez in school as a "foreign" student.
His mother had always told him she gave birth at her sister's house in El Paso and was afraid to go to the hospital because she was living and working in the U.S. illegally. A family friend who worked at a local hospital helped deliver Jaquez according to his mother and aunt. That woman died a year ago.
Now as an adult without Mexican citizenship documents he expects it will be hard to find a job. "It leaves the person in no man's land. It leaves them with no legal rights and no place to call their home," said Jessica Miles, an immigration attorney with Noble & Vrapi who has taken over the case.
Jaquez now waits for news in the shadow of the border fence. Standing on the Mexican side he can see Texas. "I was working, had my girlfriend right there. My life is there not here."
