Houston • A U.S.-born 18-year-old was released from immigration custody Tuesday after wrongfully being detained for more than three weeks.
Francisco Erwin Galicia left a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Pearsall, Texas, on Tuesday. His lawyer, Claudia Galan, confirmed he had been released, less than a day after The Dallas Morning News' reporting about his case drew national attention.
ICE did not immediately comment. Nor did U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, the agency that first detained Galicia.
Galicia lives in the border city of Edinburg, Texas, and was traveling north with a group of friends when they were stopped at a Border Patrol inland checkpoint.