Two immigrants who were arrested last month in Texas are fighting their detention in cases their lawyers say could have consequences for the half-million beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira, who is being held in New Mexico, and Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, both 28 and residents of El Paso County, were brought to the United States from Mexico as children. They both applied for DACA after it was established by then-President Barack Obama in 2012, providing them work authorization and allowing them to stay in the country.
While new DACA grants have been paused in Texas following a January U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, renewals in the Lone Star State remain legal. Both have continually renewed their status, extending Santiago’s DACA claim through April 2026 and Gamez Lira’s through August 2026.
Gamez Lira’s case is being heard in the U.S. District Court in New Mexico.
Officials from the Trump administration, which tried but failed to end the DACA program during President Donald Trump’s first term, have argued “Dreamers,” as they are often called, are not protected from deportation, especially if they have criminal records. Gamez Lira and Santiago pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, which is a petty misdemeanor in Texas, about a decade ago, according to their court petitions.
Advocates and lawyers in the cases argue any past charges should have been an issue before, that their immigration arrests were conducted without due process — and that cases like these could set precedent for protections, or lack thereof, for the over 500,000 DACA recipients.
Lawyer says arrests illegal
Lawsuits and camera footage shared with news outlets captured both immigration arrests.
Santiago, a community activist with progressive groups like Mujer Obrera, was detained by Customs and Border Protection at El Paso International Airport on her way to a conference Aug. 3, her petition states and camera footage from her arrest shows.
Gamez Lira, who had worked as a forklift operator, was arrested Aug. 13 after seven men, who his petition states did not identify themselves, surrounded his car and took him into custody while two of his children were inside the car for a medical appointment for one of them, his petition states. Footage obtained by news outlet Elpasoya shows the arrest.
Marisa Ong, one attorney overseeing the cases, said she was not aware of an arrest warrant in either case.
Conditions at ICE detention center raise concerns (copy)
The Otero County Processing Center, next to the Otero County Prison Facility north of Chaparral, N.M.
“They were both picked up, in our view, illegally because they were not provided with any due process,” Ong said in a recent interview. “And now, the government is holding them in detention even though they cannot be removed — if you’re a DACA recipient, you cannot be removed from the United States.”
Ong is a collaborating attorney with Singleton Schreiber, a national law firm working with local partners on both of their habeas corpus petitions — the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico in Gamez Lira’s case and the National Immigration Project in Santiago’s, which is being heard in Texas.
Since the filing of their petitions, the judges presiding over both cases have issued temporary restraining orders forbidding immigration officials from physically moving them. Gamez Lira is being held in the Otero County Processing Center, Santiago in the El Paso Service Processing Center.
“We’re hoping that by bringing these habeas petitions, the government is on notice,” Ong said. “We’re hoping that this case sends a clear message that no one — regardless of their immigration status — should be deprived of their rights without due process.”
“We’re standing with these individuals,” she added, “not just for their own protection, but also to ensure that this doesn’t happen to other DACA recipients.”
‘Why now?’
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to inquiries regarding either of the complaints or the broader arrest of DACA recipients, but ICE officials told immigration news outlet Border Report they consider Gamez Lira subject to removal for being a “criminal illegal alien” for what the agency said was a 2016 arrest on disorderly conduct and marijuana possession charges.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has issued statements to multiple news outlets raising the possibility DACA recipients could be removed for illegal activity.
“Illegal aliens who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals [DACA] are not automatically protected from deportations,” McLaughlin wrote in July. “DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country. Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime.”
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Jessica Aguirre, an attorney with Contigo Immigrant Justice.
Ong disputed the argument, saying if their past misdemeanor convictions were an issue, it should have come up when they last renewed their status.
“Whatever they may have in their history has never been an impediment to the government renewing their DACA status,” she said.
Jessica Aguirre, an attorney with Contigo Immigrant Justice, formerly called the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, suggested the arrests could be due to ICE trying to meet “arbitrary quotas” set by the Trump administration and “not stopping at undocumented individuals.” She pointed to cases of wrongfully deported U.S. citizens and efforts to revoke temporary protections such as those given to some Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants.
“If these charges were an issue,” said Aguirre, “the big question is ‘Why now?’ “