<div id="readability-page-1"><div>A Maryland woman has spent days in immigration detention despite being a U.S. citizen with a valid birth certificate and other documentation — documents ICE claims aren’t authentic, her attorneys told HuffPost Thursday. Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, 22, was born in Maryland and spent time in Mexico before coming back to the United States, Victoria Slatton, one of the attorneys working on her case, told HuffPost in a phone call Thursday. Slatton has worked to draw attention to Diaz Morales’ case, including in several TikTok videos. Politics: Trump Spews Lies About The Economy In His Year-End Address To NationShirley Elvirita, Diaz Morales’ 17-year-old sister, told HuffPost over the phone Thursday night that she, her sister and their father were doing laundry in Baltimore on Sunday, and afterwards, the sisters went to pick up some Taco Bell. After getting back on the road, Shirley recalled, they were surrounded by several vehicles filled with law enforcement personnel, who pulled them over. Officers ignored Shirley’s questions and took her sister “forcefully” into one of the vans. They told Shirley they would let her go ― but not her sister.“I kept shouting at them that she was from here, but they wouldn’t listen to me,” the younger sister recalled. Shirley said the stop and her sister’s arrest seemed like racial discrimination: “I showed them our identifications, and they didn’t pay me any attention, they went straight to my sister because she’s darker than me.”“To me, it seemed like racial profiling. I have not been given a legitimate reason why she would have been picked up,” Slatton said. “I have not seen any evidence that they went there to find her, or that she was doing anything wrong.” From there, Diaz Morales was sent to a holding room at Baltimore’s ICE office. And while attorneys worked to file a petition for writ of habeas corpus on Diaz Morales’ behalf, at some point ICE transferred her to Louisiana — a troubling move given both the ongoing legal effort to keep her in Maryland and the state’s reputation as a deportation hub. Politics: New Disturbing Epstein Images Released By House DemsDiaz Morales’ father, Manuel Madrigal, said that while he had been in touch with his daughter’s legal team, she still hadn’t had the chance to speak to a lawyer despite being in ICE detention for several days straight. (Diaz Morales’ legal team told HuffPost Thursday night that they were able to schedule a virtual appointment for Monday, Dec. 22.)“We spent, I think, close to five hours waiting in Baltimore to speak to her, before we were told they had moved her out of state in the middle of the night,” said Zachary Perez, who, like Slatton, is an attorney at Sanabria &amp; Associates working on Diaz Morales’ case. “We suspect — we don’t have proof — we suspect they did this because they knew we were going to file the lawsuit.” “The court entered an order enjoining ICE from removing her,” Slatton said.<div><blockquote>They’re denying that any of her birth certificates, which are from Laurel, Maryland, her records of immunization, medical records — they’re denying the authenticity of them. It is something I’ve never encountered.Zachary Perez, attorney for Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales</blockquote></div>According to the court docket in the habeas corpuscase, the court transmitted information about Diaz Morales to the Trump administration — and specifically, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland — by 12:14 p.m. on Wednesday, effectuating a standing order related to habeas cases. The order specifically applies to detainees “presently detained in Maryland” who need emergency relief.Under those circumstances, the order prohibits the government from removing a person from the continental United States, and “SUSPENDS the effect of any change of the Petitioner’s legal status that may deprive this Court of subject-matter jurisdiction over the Petition.”Politics: Doctor For Ex-Vice President Blares Alarm On Trump’s Health During SpeechAfter a Thursday morning telephone hearing, U.S. District Judge Brendan A. Hurson, a Biden appointee, extended that standing order, “given the jurisdictional questions embedded in the merits of the petition, in order to preserve existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of this Court over this matter while the Court determines the scope of its authority to grant the requested relief.”“Specifically,” Hurson wrote Thursday, “Respondents, including all those acting for them or on their behalf, are enjoined from removing Petitioner Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales from the United States or altering her legal status during the pendency of this action subject to further order of this Court.”ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System returns a result for a file number associated with Diaz Morales’ case, referring to her by a variation on her name ― Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz ― and stating that she is being held at Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana. (Shirley said her and her sister’s parents weren’t married when Diaz Morales was born, but after their marriage, her sister started using a slightly different name on paperwork. Diaz Moralez is her mother’s maiden name.)The locator system is known to be frequently out of date, so it’s unclear whether Diaz Morales really is at that facility.Politics: Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Was 'Angry' At 1 Irrefutable Thing In Address To NationThe detainee locator also lists her country of birth as Mexico. But her attorneys say they have given ICE several pieces of documentation that prove she was born in the U.S., including a birth certificate. “The thing that’s been the most difficult so far is that, in all of our interactions with the government, they’re denying that any of her birth certificates, which are from Laurel, Maryland, her records of immunization, medical records — they’re denying the authenticity of them,” Perez said. “It is something I’ve never encountered in all my work as an attorney,” Perez said. “It’s infuriating.” Diaz Morales’ situation is somewhat unusual. After being born in Maryland, she went to Mexico as a child but never obtained a U.S. passport. At some point, she entered the United States without documentation, fleeing what her attorneys described as an emergency, life-or-death situation. Diaz Morales’ father referenced the danger posed by Jalisco Nueva Generación, a cartel.Politics: Newt Gingrich's 'Gaslighting' Spin On Trump Speech Has Critics Saying 'OMFG'Reentering the country without documentation does not affect whether someone is a U.S. citizen, Diaz Morales’ attorneys noted. “If you’re a United States citizen — which she is, she was born a United States citizen — you have the right to return to the country,” Perez said. “She’s never been denaturalized. I want to be very, very clear on that.” Diaz Morales hasn’t been able to speak with anyone from her legal team yet, according to Perez. But she has been allowed to speak to her family a couple of times, and told them Thursday morning she had heard she would be transferred again — escalating concerns that she would become even more isolated within ICE’s opaque, nationwide detention network.In the hearing Thursday morning, ICE maintained that it believed Diaz Morales’ documents were fake, Slatton said. “I’ve been doing this a very long time,” said Slatton, who has been working in immigration law for a decade, including as an asylum officer at the Department of Homeland Security. “I understand that not everyone is honest all of the time. This is not one of those cases. It would be impossible.” In a statement to HuffPost Thursday night, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson asserted: “Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz is NOT a U.S. citizen – she is an illegal alien from Mexico. She did NOT provide a U.S. birth certificate or any evidence in support of her claim that she is a U.S. citizen.”The statement continued: “On December 14, 2025, ICE arrested Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz, an illegal alien from Mexico, in Baltimore, Maryland. On October 20, 2023, when CBP encountered her near Lukeville, Arizona, Madrigal-Diaz claimed she was a citizen of Mexico and was born on October 18, 2003. Her case is being adjudicated and she is receiving full due process. Any allegation that ICE does not allow detainees to contact legal assistance is FALSE. All detainees have access to phones to communicate with lawyers.”“She is a U.S. citizen,” Slatton said, noting that both ICE and the Executive Office for Immigration Review had been “provided with a motion with records that are indisputable. These include a birth certificate, immunization records from the state of Maryland, and various affidavits.”“I called the hospital, and they were able to confirm she was a patient during that ‘general period,’” Slatton added. “This last part especially would be impossible to manufacture. We will be working to obtain even more evidence, but there is no doubt that she was born here and ICE has been put on notice.”“I want to know if they are going to release her,” Shirley said. “She was born here.”<h3>Political Updates</h3><ul><li>'What The Hell': Trump's Nothingburger National Address Leaves Watchers Baffled</li><li>AOC Answers JD Vance 2028 Matchup Question With 4 Stomping Words</li><li>Gavin Newsom Trolls Trump Speech With 1 Word, Repeated Over And Over And Over Again</li></ul>Read the original on HuffPost</div></div>

Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales, a U.S. citizen, was arrested by ICE despite having valid documentation of her citizenship. Her attorneys claim ICE is denying the authenticity of her documents. Diaz Morales was transferred to Louisiana, complicating legal efforts to keep her in Maryland. A court order has temporarily prohibited her removal from the U.S. while her case is reviewed.

ICE Says U.S. Citizen’s Birth Certificate Is Fake After Arresting Her: Attorneys