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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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A federal agent fresh from training made a paperwork error that led to a green-card applicant being detained at an immigration appointment, court records show.
Nolan De Long, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in California, misunderstood immigration jargon, leading to Carlos De La Garza’s arrest in Berkeley at the end of a routine appointment.
The errors De Long made were discovered when De La Garza challenged his detention in federal court, per documents no longer publicly available reviewed by The Washington Post, with a federal judge ruling the Mexican's initial detention unlawful on March 9.
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Attorneys for De La Garza at Lakin & Wille LLP in Oakland, California, told Newsweek on Tuesday that they would continue working to keep him in the U.S. "where he belongs."
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment via email Tuesday morning.
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Why It Matters
Following a major recruitment push last summer, the Trump administration rapidly sped up the training process for new immigration agents—cutting the time by about 200 hours—leading to concerns from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress that new recruits would not have enough grounding going out into the field. DHS has insisted that agents are properly trained and that any potential mistakes are investigated and corrected where necessary.
Democrats and Republicans have raised concerns about the training that agents are receiving, with Democrats in particular seeking greater oversight at DHS, particularly in the wake of the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good by an ICE agent and Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis in January. Democrats are seeking greater oversight of DHS amid a partial government shutdown over funding for the department.
What To Know
De La Garza first came to the U.S. from Mexico in the early 1990s, court records reviewed by Newsweek showed. After two deportations in 1994 and 1996, he returned to the U.S., bought a home in Berkeley, California, with his wife and their son, both U.S. citizens.
His wife and son have since died, and De La Garza told immigration officials he would be heartbroken if he had to leave the U.S. and was not able to visit their graves, according to The Washington Post.
After getting married, De La Garza applied for permanent residency, and DHS granted him work authorization while his green-card application was pending. Despite a criminal history, which he had declared, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continued processing the application, which was granted in 2004.
On his record were some misdemeanors from the 1990s, an expunged drug conviction that cost him his first green card, and a charge of assaulting a police officer in 2014 during a mental health crisis. DHS said the 2014 incident involved a firearm. De La Garza served five years' probation and has not faced any other charges since, calling the incident a wakeup call.
Following his wife's death in 2020, De La Garza became his severely disabled son's full-time caregiver and applied again for permanent residency in 2024, again fully declaring his criminal history but asking for a waiver because of his son's needs. His son died in August 2025, court records show.
De Long had been on the job one month when he and another ICE agent arrested De La Garza at his green-card interview on December 1, 2025. According to court filings withdrawn from public viewing but seen by The Washington Post, that was the result of a paperwork error by De Long.
During the appointment, De Long filled out an I-213 form, which is a record of a deportable or inadmissible immigrant, but included sample language from another case and didn't delete it, leading to the conclusion that De La Garza’s green-card application had been denied and he needed to be detained.
De La Garza immediately challenged his arrest, with the government initially pointing to the form that mandatory detention was necessary. The government later retracted that argument, telling the court that it had investigated, and De Long said his inexperience led to the error. The agent apologized to the court and De La Garza, saying he understood the seriousness of the mistake.
DHS did not argue against a ruling by a district judge that ordered De La Garza’s release, and it agreed not to re-detain him unless he was charged with a new crime or an immigration judge deemed him deportable.
The department told The Washington Post that there had been a clerical error and that it had been corrected but added that it should not stop agents from detaining and deporting illegal immigrants. DHS also pointed to De La Garza having been deported several times.
What People Are Saying
Judah Lakin, one of De La Garza's attorneys at Lakin & Wille LLP, told Newsweek in a statement: "Now that we have secured his liberty we will do everything we can do keep him in the United States where he belongs and desires to be. As the story makes clear he is eligible for a green card and instead of granting his permanent residency the government decided to illegally arrest him and then place him in removal proceedings."
What Happens Next
Questions remain over DHS’ new, truncated training program for ICE recruits, with about 1,300 new hires receiving a shorter program than the agency previously delivered, while a further 3,000 with reported law enforcement experience received an even shorter program.
For De La Garza, his green-card application was denied following his release, and it remains unclear if he will successfully challenge that ruling.
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