California man speaks out after being accidentally deported

(NBC, KYMA/KECY) - A man living in the U.S. legally is speaking out after he was deported while returning home through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have not commented about the case.

Legally in the U.S. and detained while crossing the border, David Valdez says all he could think about was being separated from his family, particularly his son with special needs.

Valdez has lived in Southern California for decades and his citizen son has petitioned for his residency. That gives Valdez protection from deportation and authorization to work as he waits for his green card.

He was also granted permission to travel and headed to Mexico for a few days to visit his mother. When he returned in early March, he was detained at the border for 10 hours then deported without a hearing.

"It's unfair...they know what they're doing and they still commit these injustices," Valdez expressed.

"Now they're emboldened and they want to deport or deny entry to as many people as possible," said Noemi Ramirez, an immigration attorney.

Ramirez was already working on Valdez's green card. She says CBP charged him as an aggravated felon even though he has no convictions then sent him to a shelter in Tijuana.

"CBP and ICE is not very transparent. So we don't really know why he was being charged," Ramirez shared.

She emailed supervisors at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry who then reversed course, letting him back into the U.S. two days after the saga began, but they still dont have answers.

"I'm not sure if it's an error. I'm not sure if it's an abuse of power. They never gave us an explanation of why all this came up," Ramirez remarked.

She says her office is now fielding a lot of calls, questions from people who say they never had reason to worry before.

"It could happen to anybody, right? Anybody that's a resident. Anybody who has [a] non-immigrant visa," Ramirez spoke.