DHS Confirms US Citizens Were Arrested, Says They’re at Fault

Officials say the men told authorities they were in the country illegally.

Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez hugs his mother in Tallahassee, Fla., after being released from jail on April 17, 2025. Thomas Kennedy via AP

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials confirmed on April 21 that two U.S. citizens were recently arrested, but said the men told them they were illegally in the country.

Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez, a dual citizen of Mexico and the United States, was detained after being stopped by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and telling the trooper he was in the United States illegally, a senior DHS official told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Immediately after learning the individual was a United State citizen, he was released,” the official said.

Gomez, 20, was in a car that was stopped on April 16 just after entering Florida from Georgia, according to Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson at the Florida Immigrant Coalition who assisted the family.

Gomez was charged under a new law prohibiting individual’s entry into Florida if they’re in the country illegally, even though the law is blocked by a court order.

The charge was dropped the following day after Gomez’s mother showed the judge his state identification card, birth certificate, and Social Security card, said Kennedy, who attended a hearing in the case.

Court records show Leon County Judge Lashawn Riggans found no basis for the charge.

Gomez briefly remained in custody after Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of the DHS, requested he remain there for 48 hours, a common practice when the agency wants to take custody of someone, before being released on April 17.

The Florida Highway Patrol did not return a request for comment.

“Juan Carlos is a U.S. citizen, first and foremost. He shouldn’t have been arrested on that basis alone,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times. Kennedy said the DHS should apologize.

Another U.S. citizen, 19-year-old Jose Hermosillo, was recently arrested by immigration officials near the U.S.–Mexico border.

Hermosillo’s aunt told a local outlet that her nephew informed authorities that he is a citizen, but alleged they did not believe him.

She said she provided officials with Hermosillo’s birth certificate and social security card.

A federal magistrate judge dismissed the case on April 17, court records show.

A criminal complaint signed by a Border Patrol agent says that Hermosillo “admitted to illegally entering the United States” and did not have proper immigration documents.

Hermosillo on April 8 approached Border Patrol agents in Tucson on April 8 “and stated he had entered the U.S. illegally through Nogales,” Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said on the social media platform X. “He said he wanted to turn himself in and completed a sworn statement identifying as a Mexican citizen who had entered unlawfully.”

After his relatives presented proof of U.S. citizenship, the charges were dropped and he was released, McLaughlin said.

“This arrest was the direct result of Hermosillo’s own actions and statements,” she wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.