Ernesto Zuniga Hilario is asking a federal judge to help bring him back to the United States after immigration authorities deported him to Mexico, he says, without a valid removal order and despite his repeated refusals to leave. His attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
The petition says authorities detained Zuniga Hilario in Texas in September and removed him without giving him a meaningful chance to understand or challenge the legal basis for the government's action. His case centers on conflicting accounts: did he agree to leave voluntarily, and did officials have a valid order authorizing his removal?
The competing accounts
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Zuniga Hilario signed a voluntary departure form on September 6 and returned to Mexico on September 16. “Any allegation that Ernesto Zuniga Hilario didn't receive due process is FALSE,” the spokesperson told Newsweek. “Zuniga Hilario signed his voluntary departure form on September 6 in blue ink. He left the United States and returned to Mexico on September 16. Breaking our country's laws is always a bad decision.”
The petition tells a different story. Zuniga Hilario says officers repeatedly asked if he wanted to depart voluntarily, and he declined because he wanted to present his case and expected to appear before an immigration judge. He says authorities put him on a bus, drove him to an airport and flew him to Mexico City without giving him a meaningful chance to challenge his removal. He says he didn't leave voluntarily.
DHS said ICE arrested Zuniga Hilario on September 6 after the Lampasas County Sheriff's Office conducted a traffic stop. The agency said he entered the United States illegally “at an unknown date and time by sneaking across our border on foot.” Newsweek said it emailed his legal team on Wednesday and was awaiting a response.
The removal-order dispute
Zuniga Hilario says he last entered the United States without inspection around 2008 and lived near Lometa, Texas, before his detention. He acknowledges previous encounters with immigration authorities, but says none led to a removal order. His attorneys argue that he wasn't subject to an expedited removal order or an order from an immigration judge.
Court filings say officers apprehended him while he traveled with his family for a therapy appointment. Officials held him at the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas. An ICE detainee-locator record submitted as an exhibit also lists that facility as his detention location.
His attorneys argue that if officials were reinstating an earlier removal order, they had to notify him and give him a chance to contest it. The petition acknowledges a possible jurisdictional hurdle: Zuniga Hilario had already been removed when his case was filed. His attorneys say the case is different because, they allege, the government acted without an underlying removal order and denied him a meaningful chance to challenge the action.
Family and wider enforcement context
The petition identifies Zuniga Hilario's wife, Obdulia Cervantes Vega, as a lawful permanent resident. The couple has four U.S.-citizen children, the filing says. His attorneys ask a judge to help facilitate his return, but the article reports no ruling in the case.
The report places the dispute within the Trump administration's mass deportation policy. It says cases have involved wrongful deportations and removals carried out in defiance of court orders, and that federal judges have challenged the administration over wrongful removals. Some judges have ordered DHS to facilitate the return of people who were improperly deported. The report doesn't say whether a judge has issued such an order in Zuniga Hilario's case.
- ernesto zuniga hilario
- department of homeland security
- immigration and customs enforcement
- deportation
- due process
- immigration court
- texas
- mexico