AUSTIN, Texas — Carmen Mejía was released from the Travis County Jail in Austin on Monday after a judge declared her “actually innocent” in a two-decade-long case involving the death of an infant she had been babysitting.
She had originally been charged following the 2003 death of 10-month-old Abelardo Casiano, who died after being scalded with bath water while under Mejía’s care. At the time of the incident, Mejía was legally in the United States on protected status.
However, the relief of her exoneration was short-lived because Mejía was forced to return to the Travis County Jail due to an immigration detainer request filed by federal immigration officials.
Her legal status had lapsed while she was imprisoned for a crime she did not commit. Last Tuesday, however, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reversed the hold, finally allowing Mejía to regain her freedom and begin rebuilding her life.
Despite her release, Mejía now faces a far more complicated path to restoring her legal status than she did before she was exonerated.
President Donald Trump has sharply criticized ICE in discussions about the nation’s most “dangerous criminals,” frequently referring to them as “the worst of the worst.”
Yet compiled data indicate that most people held in immigration detention centers have no prior criminal convictions.
For Mejía to restore her legal status, she must navigate what advocates describe as an increasingly complex federal immigration bureaucracy, including reduced access to green cards and a temporary freeze on consideration of asylum applications.
The Innocence Project, which works “to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone,” has supported Mejía since the beginning of her case and continues to assist her now.
The organization is currently “working with a team of immigration attorneys to figure out every avenue for potential relief that she has,” said Vanessa Potkin, an attorney with the Innocence Project.
According to a PBS survey updated in February measuring public opinion on ICE’s immigration enforcement efforts, more than 65% of respondents said they believe the agency has gone too far in its immigration crackdown following the killing of Alex Pretti.
“A majority of Americans — 62% — believe ICE’s actions are making Americans less safe. Another 37%, including 77% of Republicans, say America is safer,” PBS noted.
The enforcement sweeps have proven unpopular, according to Axios. During a closed-door briefing, White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair privately urged House Republicans to stop emphasizing “mass deportations” and instead focus messaging on the removal of violent criminals, even though the phrase had been central to the GOP’s 2024 campaign message.
That shift reflects growing concern among some Republicans that Democrats are successfully framing Trump’s immigration policies as “overly sweeping and indiscriminate,” according to reporting cited by NBC’s Kate Santaliz and ABC’s Marc Caputo.
Public distrust of federal enforcement has also grown as many Americans perceive that enforcement efforts are not focused primarily on individuals who pose serious threats but instead disproportionately target people who appear “non-white.”
Data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse show that as of Feb. 7, more than 73% of people in immigration detention had no criminal convictions. Among those who did, many had only minor offenses, including traffic violations.
The same data indicate that “over 2,339,623 immigrants have already filed formal asylum applications and are now waiting for asylum hearings or decisions in Immigration Court.”
Still, the Department of Homeland Security continues to emphasize enforcement against what it describes as dangerous individuals.
In a press release issued Tuesday, DHS stated that “nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.” and highlighted several recent arrests with photos, names, locations and alleged crimes.
“Criminal illegal aliens who prey on vulnerable children, harm innocent Americans, and commit heinous acts of violence should NEVER be allowed to remain in the U.S. Under President Trump, ICE has removed more than 713,000 illegal aliens from our country, and we now have the lowest murder rate in 125 years,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis.
At the same time, DHS maintains a “Worst of the Worst” website highlighting individuals it says have been deported, drawing information from posts shared on Truth Social, X and Facebook.
The website states: “Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, the hardworking men and women of DHS and ICE are fulfilling President Trump’s promise and carrying out mass deportations — starting with the worst of the worst — including the illegal aliens you see here.”
However, comparable data could not be found on the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Statistics Dashboard, which indicates that “data is current as of January 2025” within its Alternatives to Detention statistics section.
The Gámez-Cuéllar family of McAllen, similar to Mejía, was released from ICE custody on Monday following bipartisan pressure led by Republican U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz.
The family, who are mariachi musicians, fled criminal violence in Mexico in 2023 and have no criminal history, advocates say.
Cases like Mejía’s illustrate how individuals seeking safety and a new life in the United States can become entangled in the immigration system even after being cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
ICE retains the authority to release individuals like Mejía, but advocates argue that the broader system still places vulnerable people at risk, raising questions about whether those who come to the United States to rebuild their lives are treated with the dignity and fairness they deserve.
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