19-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Held For Around 10 Days After Border Mix-Up

Jose Hermosillo was visiting Arizona from New Mexico when border officers accused him of arriving from Mexico without authorization.

Court documents reveal that immigration officials kept a 19-year-old U.S. citizen from New Mexico behind bars for around 10 days until a judge granted his release Thursday.

The teen, Jose Hermosillo, told local news station AZPM that he and his girlfriend had been visiting family in Tucson, Arizona, before the incident. He told the outlet that, at one point, he got lost on foot, and that’s when Border Patrol picked him up.

The mistaken arrest comes as President Donald Trump’s ongoing assault on all forms of immigration has led to reports of mistaken detentions and at least one mistaken deportation.

The details of Hermosillo’s story are scant and conflicting: A criminal complaint says that the officers detained him near Nogales, Arizona, which is around an hour south of Tucson by car. But Hermosillo told AZPM that he had never been to Nogales.

The complaint states that the teen was detained April 8 after “admitt[ing] to illegally entering the United States of America from Mexico on or about April 7, 2025, at or near Nogales, Arizona at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officials.” It describes him as “a citizen of Mexico.”