Month: January 2026

By Mike Hellgren

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    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Through a translator, 22-year-old Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales spoke publicly for the first time about her fight to prove her citizenship and a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requirement that she now must wear an ankle monitor.

One of her lawyers called it “dehumanizing.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement first detained Diaz Morales in Baltimore on December 14th, 2025, despite her pleas that she is a U.S. citizen.

She was in custody for 25 days and transported to facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and New Jersey. In one detention center, she told WJZ Investigates she slept on the floor.

Her legal team provided documents, including her Maryland birth certificate and immunization records, along with other records they said they verified through an expert at Johns Hopkins University, but the Trump Administration is not backing down.

The Department of Homeland Security previously told WJZ she is “not a U.S. citizen” and illegally entered the country along the Arizona-Mexico border in 2023.

DHS did not respond to another request for comment after releasing Diaz Morales earlier this month.

Her lawyers said their client was incorrectly placed into removal proceedings after entering the United States without documentation during an emergency, and mistakenly processed as a non-citizen.

Zachary Perez, a member of Diaz Morales’ legal team at Sanabria and Associates, called what happened to her a “bizarre journey” and a “nightmare.”

“We’re a little exhausted with playing the ‘if you give a mouse a cookie’ game with the government because every time you give a new piece of evidence, they’re seemingly happy to accept it—and then give us exactly zero information on whether this moves the needle, on whether this gets us closer to a resolution date, on whether they’re even going to stop saying that we lied about this case,” Perez said. “The repeated times that she’s had to express herself and her truth… is a level of absurd that I’ve never had to see in my practice.”

Diaz Morales is working with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office to obtain a passport.

Perez stressed, “You do not need to carry documentation with you when you go out the door, when you walk on the street, when you breathe fresh air, and it’s not an acceptable position for the government to adopt. Period.”

Diaz Morales said she was “in shock” after her arrest.

She told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren about being apart from her young son.

“He is better now because so they’re happy that they’re together. Her own father communicated that her son had missed her deeply and that on the first day of her detention, he stopped eating,” Diaz Morales’ translator said. “He would cry every day.”

She also spoke about having to wear an ankle monitor.

“The monitor feels weird because it harms her sometimes, but she says it is better than being detained. Although she is uncomfortable, she recognizes it is the better option,” Diaz Morales’ said through a translator.

Another member of her legal team, Victoria Slatton, was more blunt.

“I don’t want to say retaliation, but I will say I feel that it’s very unfair to Dulce. She has been through enough and a lot of trauma in this whole ordeal, and this is just re-traumatizing her every single time she has to re-enter that [ICE] building,” Slatton said. “The ankle monitor, I feel, is very dehumanizing. I don’t, unfortunately, think that we’re going to get it off until the proceedings are terminated, but I wish that we could because it’s ridiculous. …She should be home with her child. She should be at work. She should be with her family, and the fact that she’s still under ICE supervision is just appalling to me.”

Diaz Morales also had a message for the Trump administration.

“Everyone who is born here has the same rights—no matter that she has Hispanic heritage—she is still born here, and she still counts as a United States citizen,” Diaz Morales said through a translator. “She still has the same rights as everyone else.”

Diaz Morales’ next court appearance is scheduled for July.

She had two check-ins with ICE in Baltimore this week, where she said she was questioned for hours.

Her lawyers hope they can get the case dismissed before she has to appear in court again.

Full statement from DHS

“Dulce Consuelo Madrigal Diaz is NOT a U.S. citizen—she is an illegal alien from Mexico.

She did NOT provide a valid U.S. birth certificate or any evidence in support of her claim that she is a U.S. citizen.

On December 14, ICE arrested this illegal alien 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.

Any allegation that ICE does not allow detainees to contact legal assistance is FALSE. All detainees have access to phones to communicate with lawyers.”

Full statement from Diaz Morales’ legal team

“Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales is a United States citizen by birth. She was born in Maryland on October 18, 2003. That fact is supported by a certified Maryland birth certificate, contemporaneous hospital records from Laurel Regional Hospital, affidavits from individuals who were at her birth, elementary school records, and Maryland public health immunization records beginning in infancy. A medical expert in pediatrics conducted an extensive and thorough review of these documents and confirmed that they substantially support Dulce’s claim of being a U.S. citizen born in Maryland.

Dulce was mistakenly processed as a noncitizen after entering the United States during an emergency without access to documentation. She was assigned an A-number and placed into removal proceedings. That administrative error did not and cannot change her constitutional status. She is a citizen.

When Dulce was detained, we notified ICE, OPLA, EOIR, and the district court of Maryland and submitted extensive evidence of her citizenship. Still, Dulce was held in immigration detention for twenty-five days. During that time, she was transferred five times between facilities, separated from her family, denied meaningful access to counsel, and confined in deeply troubling conditions. Her detention was not the result of any criminal conduct. It was the product of bureaucratic failure and institutional inertia. I was a failure of the U.S. government generally.

No U.S. citizen should be jailed, moved from facility to facility, and forced to endure weeks of confinement simply to prove what the government already has the ability and obligation to verify.

This case raises serious concerns about precedent. By forcing Dulce and her legal team to produce extraordinary volumes of evidence in order to secure her release, the government effectively shifted the burden onto a U.S. citizen to prove her citizenship while incarcerated. That inversion is dangerous. Citizenship and liberty should not depend on a person’s ability to gather paperwork from behind detention walls or retain legal counsel under duress. If normalized, this approach puts countless citizens at risk of detention 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 has refused a joint termination of these proceedings, she still faces the threat of deportation. Until these proceedings are formally corrected and safeguards are enforced, her freedom remains conditional. Her next hearing will be with Judge Hartye on July 1. We hope her proceedings will be terminated before then.

She is currently in the process of working with Senator Van Hollen’s office to obtain a U.S. passport. We are working to secure additional medical records from her childhood. However, none of this should be necessary as we have submitted ample evidence already to prove her citizenship.

Dulce remains under ICE supervision as a condition of her release. This is ridiculous, as ICE does not have jurisdiction over a U.S. citizen. On Tuesday (1/13), Dulce had an ICE check-in and was given an ankle monitor. The check-in lasted close to eight hours, during which time she faced intimidation by guards and was not allowed to eat.

On Thursday (1/15), our legal team submitted a response to the court based on issues raised by Judge Hartye. We also submitted new evidence and again requested termination of proceedings.

Last night (1/15), she was told to report to ICE again this morning (1/16). Attorney Zachary Perez and I accompanied her. She was interrogated for close to three hours. The questions asked were also confusing, unclear, and redundant, as they were similar to the request from the court, which we have already responded to.

We are hoping that this matter is cleared up in a matter of days instead of months. Dulce is a person who deserves to be able to live freely and move on with her life. She will no longer be taking requests from the media at this time. We hope this request is honored. Her legal team will update the media when we can.”

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