The Texas mother of three is asking a federal court to order her return from Mexico. Her case highlights a disputed immigration enforcement move involving DACA protections, voluntary departure and family separation.
ICE deported Jessica Treviño Villegas, a 34-year-old DACA mother of three from Texas, to Mexico in March, then the federal government accused her of unauthorized travel, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and reported July 31, 2026. Her legal team says she had legal permission to stay in the United States through April 2027, and is asking a judge to bring her back to the United States.
The case has drawn attention because it reads like a legal Catch-22: ICE deports a DACA recipient; the DACA mom then faces an allegation that leaving was unauthorized. The government says she accepted voluntary departure and will not return. Her lawyers say she was unlawfully removed while still protected.
A deportation becomes the dispute
Villegas had lived in Alamo, Texas, after coming to the United States from Mexico when she was 7, according to the lawsuit described in Newsweek. She later received protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, better known as DACA, at age 20.
DACA is often misunderstood. It does not grant permanent legal status or a path to citizenship by itself. It can, however, allow eligible immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to remain temporarily and work, so long as they meet program requirements and continue renewing their protection.
That distinction is at the center of Villegas’ case. Her attorneys say her DACA status remained valid through April 2027 when she was removed. In their filing, they argue that she could not be lawfully removed while that protection was still in effect.
The government’s position is sharply different. DHS officials said Villegas “knowingly accepted voluntary departure and waived appeal,” according to the report. The agency also said she left the U.S. on March 25, 2026, and “will NOT return.”
The unauthorized-travel allegation
The most striking part of the filing is what happened after the deportation. According to Villegas’ lawsuit, DHS sent her a notice seeking to terminate her DACA status because she had “engaged in unauthorized travel” outside the United States on or about March 25.
That date matters because March 25 is the same day the lawsuit says she was deported to Mexico.
Villegas’ attorneys argue the government cannot create the basis for a DACA termination by removing her and then treating the removal as if she chose to travel abroad without permission. They say she remains in valid DACA status and is separated from her U.S. citizen children.
The government has not accepted that framing. DHS pointed to the voluntary departure order and said Villegas waived appeal. The dispute now turns on how a federal judge views the sequence: a protected DACA recipient removed despite that protection, or a person who accepted a departure process the government considers binding.
What her lawyers are seeking
The lawsuit names DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons as defendants, according to the report. Villegas’ legal team wants the court to declare her removal unlawful and order the government to facilitate her return to Texas.
Attorney David Rozas said in a statement that her DACA “remains valid through April 2027” and that the government had “no lawful basis” to remove her. The filing seeks immediate return, not simply a future review of her status.
Villegas also framed the case in family terms. She said she has renewed DACA, followed the rules and believed the country would “do right” by her and her family. “Instead, I was taken from my children,” she said in a statement released Thursday.
Her three children are U.S. citizens, according to the filing, and were set to return to school the next month. That detail gives the court fight a practical urgency beyond immigration paperwork: whether a mother can return home while the government’s actions are reviewed.
DHS cites the December arrest
The government’s account begins months before the March deportation. DHS officials said Villegas and her husband were arrested in late December after a collision involving the couple’s vehicle and an unmarked Homeland Security Investigations vehicle in South Texas.
Officials also said her husband had been in the country without permission when they were arrested. Villegas was detained and placed into removal proceedings, according to the lawsuit.
In February, she received an order of voluntary departure “under safeguards,” with a deadline of March 19 to leave the United States, the lawsuit states. She remained in DHS custody before being deported to Mexico on March 25.
Those details will likely matter in court because voluntary departure can carry legal consequences. Villegas’ side is not simply disputing that paperwork existed; it is arguing that the government could not rely on that process to remove someone whose DACA protection had not expired.
Why DACA cases are fragile
Villegas’ case lands in a broader fight over DACA recipients and immigration enforcement. According to a DHS letter cited in the report, 86 DACA recipients had been deported during the current Trump administration, while 241 others had been arrested.
Immigration advocates argue that cases like Villegas’ show DACA recipients are vulnerable even when their renewals are current. Tania Chavez, executive director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero, said Villegas did not willingly leave the country and accused the government of trying to take away protections after causing the removal.
Supporters of stricter enforcement generally emphasize that DACA is not legal status and does not erase other immigration issues. That is the tension DACA has carried since its creation: it offers a form of protection, but not the permanence that would end disputes over removability.
For families, that legal gray area can become a sudden separation. For agencies, it can become a question of how far enforcement powers extend when a recipient still has active DACA documentation. For courts, it becomes a test of whether process and status were respected in the right order.
What remains unresolved
The immediate question is whether the federal court will order the government to bring Villegas back to the United States while her challenge proceeds. That is a significant request because it asks the court not only to review a removal, but to undo its practical effect.
The court will also have to consider the government’s effort to terminate her DACA status. If the alleged unauthorized travel was the government’s own deportation, Villegas’ lawyers argue, then using it against her would turn enforcement into a self-fulfilling penalty.
Still unclear is how DHS will defend the unauthorized-travel notice in detail, and whether the agency will argue that the voluntary departure order changed the legal effect of her DACA protection. The filings described so far show two incompatible narratives of the same day in March.
For Villegas, the stakes are immediate: return to Texas and her children, or remain in Mexico while the government moves to end the protection she says was valid all along. For other DACA recipients, the case may become a warning about how quickly temporary protection can be tested when enforcement, custody and departure orders collide.
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