ACLU-NM sues over detention of DACA recipient

Patrick Lohmann
September 5, 2025
11:39 am
Updated 1:22 pm

A 28-year-old father of four with longstanding legal deportation protections is being held in New Mexico’s largest immigration detention center without cause, according to a lawsuit filed recently in New Mexico federal court.

Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira has lived in the United States for most of his life and received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protection, according to lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and Singleton Schreiber LLP, a private national firm with a New Mexico presence working with the ACLU.

DACA is a status conferred through a 2012 federal law that affords immigrants who were brought to the United States as children protection from being deported for renewable two-year periods.

Gamez Lira is a father of four and married to a United States citizen. According to the lawsuit, as well as surveillance video obtained by news outlet ElPasoYa, masked federal immigrant agents arrested him in his driveway in Horizon City, Texas, on Aug. 13 with two of his children in the car. The arrest resulted in a dislocated shoulder, according to the lawsuit ...

https://sourcenm.com/2025/09/05/aclu-nm-sues-over-detention-of-daca-recipient-held-in-new-mexico-ice-detention-center/