An illegal Harvard University graduate who has lived in the United States since he was a youngster has lately opted to self-deport to Mexico in response to the Trump administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Francisco Hernandez-Corona, 34, lived in Texas with his husband, a US citizen, until approximately a month ago.
With the new administration in charge, he became so scared of being apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel that he stopped driving and refused to open the door.
The psychology graduate worried being imprisoned by a complicit local police department during a traffic check, as many immigrants have been, or being deported against his will to an unfamiliar third nation with horrible human rights conditions, such as El Salvador.
There, US deportees are imprisoned in a mega-prison with little possibility of freedom from a place likened to a “tropical gulag.”
“We started seeing ICE everywhere and people being sent to El Salvador,” Hernandez-Corona told NBC News.
The return to Mexico was all the more surprising because Hernandez-Corona stated that he would not generally be a top target for deportation.
“I have no criminal record,” he said NewsNation. “I have a work permit, correct? I wasn’t in a scenario where I thought I was going to be deported tomorrow.”
Even after marrying and residing in Texas, Hernandez-Corona was still at risk.
At the age of ten, his father arranged for him to be smuggled across the border, and Hernandez-Corona later qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which delays deportation but does not provide full legal status.
Hernandez-Corona later declined to renew his DACA status, instead seeking a visa through another program that was not approved on time.
Though the Harvard graduate paid for his own travel to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the Trump administration has promised undocumented migrants who self-deport $1,000, government-funded flights, and the opportunity to eventually legally apply for US citizenship.
Last Monday, the administration announced that its first repatriation flight had taken occurred, returning 68 migrants to Colombia and Honduras.
