Mexico was an unfamiliar place for 19-year-old Manuel Antonio Cano-Pacheco. He was only three years old when his parents brought him to the United States – without a visa.
In 2015, as a teenager in Des Moines, Iowa, he qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the initiative spearheaded by President Barack Obama to give temporary protection to undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. Cano-Pacheco gained DACA status and with it, a work permit, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But then he was arrested and convicted on two misdemeanor drug charges. The convictions voided his DACA status, and in 2017, he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two months ago, facing a high likelihood of being deported, Cano-Pacheco chose to return to Mexico and was soon escorted across the border by ICE deportation officers.
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