The Trump administration on Wednesday immediately detained a South Texas man it had deported to Honduras earlier this year before agreeing that he could return after his lawyer argued that he had permission to be in the country through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had agreed to let José Contreras Diaz, 30, return to Texas on Wednesday. Contreras thought he would reunite with his wife and infant son, but as he landed, ICE agents arrested him again and took him to Port Isabel Detention Center in South Texas.

“Why bring someone back on a charter flight and use a lot of resources just to detain him, again?” said Stacy Tolchin, Contreras’ attorney. “He was so excited to come back and meet his baby, so for this to happen it’s just mind blowing.”

Contreras, whose family had come to the U.S. when he was 8 years old, was detained and quickly deported earlier this year during an appointment with immigration officials. His family was ordered removed more than two decades ago, but he stayed. Immigration officials didn’t act on the deportation order until his appointment earlier this year.

Still, the government approved his application for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an immigration status that protects immigrants from deportation. Tolchin said Contreras had filed for a DACA renewal, which is still pending.

After he was deported, Tolchin wrote a letter to ICE, arguing that Contreras’ deportation was illegal because his DACA status was still valid. In the letter, Tolchin attached a ruling from a federal judge in California who had ordered the return of 42-year-old Maria de Jesús Estrada Juárez, a DACA recipient who was deported in February as she was applying for legal permanent residency.

In the ruling, the judge said deporting Estrada was a “flagrant violation” of DACA protections.

The government agreed to let Contreras return to the U.S. and arranged the flight. After he was detained Wednesday, Tolchin said an ICE agent told her he didn’t know when or if Contreras will be released from the detention center.

Tolchin said she plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, challenging the legality of Contreras’ detainment.

Earlier this week, Homeland Security released a statement that “DACA does NOT confer any form of legal status in this country.

“The end result will be the same — he will not be able to remain in the U.S.,” the statement said. “The fact of the matter is those who are in our country illegally have a choice — they can leave the country voluntarily or be arrested and deported.”

Since returning to office, President Trump’s administration has cracked down on immigrants, including many DACA recipients.

From January 2025 to November 2025, at least 261 DACA recipients have been arrested — 75 of them in Texas. And between 86 and 174 DACA recipients have been deported, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (The agency gave different figures to two different Democratic members of Congress who requested the information).

Created by the Obama administration in 2012, the program allows qualifying young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to receive renewable work permits and protection from deportation as long as they don’t commit any crimes.

The first Trump administration attempted to scrap the program before the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the move.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.