Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Tuesday praised federal agents for deporting the first “Dreamer” of President Trump’s tenure.
Juan Manuel Montes, who first arrived in the U.S. at age 9, is reportedly now in his native Mexico despite having been part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, according to USA Today.
DACA lets qualifying undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children obtain work permits and relief from deportation.
USA Today said its review of federal records indicates that Montes is the first person enrolled in the program to be deported by the Trump administration.
King said last week that he was “very disappointed by the lack of action” Trump had made on reversing DACA after pledging to end the program during his 2016 election campaign.
“Every day they are complicit it is harder to resolve,” King told The Daily Caller. “Is [Trump] going to force us to go back to court again?”
Montes, 23, was reportedly approached by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer the night of Feb. 17 in Calexico, Calif., and the encounter resulted in his deportation.
“Some people told me that they were going to deport me; others said nothing would happen,” he said from his relatives’ home in western Mexico, according to USA Today.
“I thought that if I kept my nose clean nothing would happen,” Montes added, requesting that the exact location of his whereabouts remain unknown.
Montes had left his wallet in a friend’s car, meaning he could not display his ID or DACA status to the CBP officer. The “Dreamer” reportedly ended up in Mexico hours later after agents told him he could not retrieve the documents.
Former President Obama first implemented the policy in June 2012, and it now has 750,000 participants.