Maryland mother released from ICE detention, still faces battle to prove U.S. citizenship
A Baltimore mother is back home with her family in Maryland, 25 days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained her in the city.
Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, 22, said she was born in the United States, and her lawyers presented her birth certificate and immunization records as proof. But the government has yet to back down, and the case remains open.
Released from custody
Diaz Morales spent the holidays in ICE facilities across the country, including in Maryland, Louisiana, Texas, and New Jersey.
On Wednesday, her lawyers finally got the call they had been seeking.
"Dulce is being released. We've been driving, actually, for about 2 and a half hours because we suspected it was going to happen, and we wanted to be there to make sure that she was processed correctly and actually got out," her lawyer, Victoria Slatton, said in a TikTok video.
Slatton's law firm later posted a picture of Diaz Morales smiling after her release from a government facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
"I'm one of the attorneys who has been working with her most while she was detained. I've been the most in direct communication with her," lawyer Zachary Perez told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren. "I can definitely say that there is a palpable sense of relief, but there's a lot of apprehension as well because the situation has not been resolved."
Perez told Hellgren his client has always been "firm in her truth" about her U.S. citizenship.
"Hearing her emphatically state her truth, 'I was born here. I know I was born here. I was born in Laurel, Maryland.' She knew that. That should've been enough to prevent the situation. It clearly was not," Perez said.
The arrest
The ordeal began after agents pulled over Diaz Morales as she left a Baltimore Taco Bell in December with her family.
She said she told agents she was a U.S. citizen but did not have any documentation with her.
Her legal team later produced her Maryland birth certificate and immunization records.
"If people are afraid of living in a 'show-your-papers' society, they need to know this is what it looks like," Perez said. "It looks like four unmarked cars coming up on three young women and someone getting taken away while her sister shouts, 'She was born here! She was born here.'"
Perez added, "They came to us desperate for help. They didn't know where she was. She had been disappeared into the black hole of the detention system. I want to emphasize that she was transferred five times over less than five weeks."
DHS response
In a prior statement to WJZ, a Department of Homeland Security official insisted Diaz Morales' birth certificate is not valid and that Diaz Morales provided no other proof of citizenship.
The Trump Administration alleged she entered the country illegally in the border town of Lukeville, Arizona in 2023 and claimed Mexican citizenship when questioned by border patrol at the time.
WJZ reached out to DHS for an updated statement following Diaz Morales' release but did not hear back from the agency.
Her lawyers said she "entered the United States during an emergency without access to documentation and was mistakenly processed as a noncitizen, assigned an A number, and placed into removal proceedings. That administrative error did not and cannot change her constitutional status."
"All of a sudden, the government thinks they can just shift all of this to people in these proceedings and expect them to solve all of this while they're in this black hole of the detention system," Perez said. That is absolutely terrifying, and I sincerely hope more people start to take notice of that."
What's next?
Her lawyers hired an expert at Johns Hopkins University to authenticate her documents.
There are no court hearings set at this point, but Diaz Morales will have to check in with immigration next week in Baltimore.
Full statement from Diaz Morales' legal team on her release
"Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales is a United States citizen by birth. She was born in Maryland on October 18, 2003, a fact established by a certified Maryland birth certificate, contemporaneous hospital records from Laurel Regional Hospital, medical affidavits, and Maryland public health immunization records beginning in infancy. These are primary, government-created records generated at the time of birth by United States medical providers and state authorities. A medical expert conducted an extensive and thorough review of these records and confirmed, "Overall, the documents reviewed not only suggest Ms. Diaz Morales's continuity of care as an infant, but they also substantially support her claim of being a U.S. citizen born in Maryland."
"Dulce later entered the United States during an emergency without access to documentation and was mistakenly processed as a noncitizen, assigned an A number, and placed into removal proceedings. That administrative error did not and cannot change her constitutional status."
"Despite this evidence, Dulce was held in immigration detention for twenty-five days. During that time, she was transferred five times between facilities, separated from family, denied access to counsel, and confined in conditions that were deeply troubling and inappropriate for any person, let alone a United States citizen. She experienced prolonged detention, instability, and uncertainty as she was moved repeatedly through the system. Her confinement was not the result of any criminal conduct, but of bureaucratic error compounded by institutional inertia. No United States citizen should be subjected to weeks of detention, repeated transfers, and degrading conditions simply to establish what the government already had the means and resources to confirm."
"This case also raises profound concerns about precedent. By requiring Dulce and her legal team to produce extraordinary volumes of proof to secure her release, the government has effectively shifted the burden onto United States citizens to affirmatively prove their citizenship while incarcerated. That inversion of responsibility is dangerous. Citizenship, and the rights conferred upon citizens, should not depend on a person's ability to assemble records from behind detention walls, nor should liberty hinge on how much documentation a citizen can marshal under duress. If this becomes normalized, any citizen who lacks immediate access to paperwork and professional counsel becomes vulnerable to incarceration first and verification later."
"Although Dulce has been released from custody, her case is far from over. She remains under ICE supervision and, because DHS opposed counsel's motion and has refused to terminate, she still faces the threat of deportation. Until her proceedings are formally corrected and safeguards are enforced, Dulce's freedom remains conditional, and the risk that this could happen again to her or to others remains very real. While we will continue to fight for her despite alienage being DHS's burden to prove, we are deeply troubled that the fight has been prolonged."
