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DACA Recipient Deported

[quote]It was supposed to be just another boring Tuesday.

When Jupiter Lara Castillo woke up on the morning of September 16, 2025, he didn’t expect his life to be turned upside down just a few hours later. When he got dressed in his usual work scrubs and got into the car he had just recently bought, he didn’t expect that he would be stripped of both and would not return home that night.

Sure, he had seen the videos on social media and read news headlines about masked ICE agents arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants across the country. Here on the Central Coast, more than 1,200 people have been arrested by federal immigration enforcement this year, including at least 150 in Santa Barbara County during the final week of 2025.

Castillo, a healthcare worker, UC Santa Barbara graduate, and DACA recipient whose legal status had been secure for nearly two decades, hoped that he would be safe from facing the same treatment, especially since he had been in the country since he was 7 years old, and he had always renewed his paperwork. But still, he said he had a nagging fear that — because of the way he looked, and because he was born in another country — he might be seen as a target for deportation.

Those fears came true later that morning, when Castillo made a quick stop to turn in some work registration papers at the Department of Social Services building on Calle Real outside Goleta. It was the beginning of a long, chaotic, and emotionally draining journey over the next several weeks, as Castillo was shackled, thrown into unmarked vehicles, and driven from detention center to detention center as he tried to fight his case to stay in the country. Eventually, he was deported to Mexico, a country he hadn’t known since he was a child, and far away from his partner, his brothers, his parents, and the life he had built here in Santa Barbara.

Now in Mexico City, Castillo offered to share the details of his harrowing experience, from being picked up by masked agents to being stuck in freezing basement holding cells to being driven out to the infamous Adelanto Detention Center in the California desert. He said he hopes his story can help put a face to the hundreds who have been arrested and deported in Santa Barbara County over the past year, many of whom are workers, family members, and community members who have been cast as criminal aliens by federal authorities.

A Dream Deferred
Jupiter Lara Castillo didn’t have much say in his crossing over into the U.S. as a child. He arrived with his parents when he was 7 years old, and every major step in his life since then happened here in California. He received protected status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an initiative created in 2012 to ensure children who were brought into the country would be protected from deportation and could apply for legal work permits.

DACA recipients, known also as “Dreamers,” are considered as holding a temporary lawful presence in the country. As long as they meet the criteria during each renewal period, DACA recipients have been allowed to remain in the U.S. and have not been typically targeted for deportation.

But the Trump administration and federal officials have been challenging that protected status recently, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has upped the rhetoric against Dreamers. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin recently told NBC News that the agency now believes DACA “does not confer any form of legal status in this country,” and she said DACA recipients could be detained and deported.

Making things more difficult for Dreamers, the agency in charge of DACA renewals — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — has added hurdles to the process, creating new requirements and asking those seeking to renew their status to submit applications five months in advance or risk delays. These delays can lead to the loss of protected status and work authorization. In some cases, DACA recipients facing delays have been encouraged to “self-deport” and leave the country voluntarily.

For much of his childhood, Castillo didn’t even consider the implications of his status as a DACA recipient. He grew up in a home in Whittier with his parents and two younger brothers, who were both born in the U.S. and are citizens.

He says that his experience was similar to most California kids. He played youth soccer, hung out with friends, and went to school. His friends didn’t consider him as an immigrant, and he was always treated like an American.

When he graduated high school in 2017, he applied to UC Santa Barbara, a campus and a town that attracted him due to the sunshine, beaches, and community. He changed his major from accounting to sociology after he enrolled in a few classes that exposed him to the social injustices of the world. “I wanted to help people,” he said.

Castillo graduated with a bachelor’s in sociology in 2021, and shortly after, he began working in the healthcare industry. For the past three years, he worked two jobs, spending days doing home aid care for the elderly through Love and Care — an organization providing in-home care in Santa Barbara — and then working the night shift helping homeless people at Good Samaritan Shelter.

It was a busy schedule, and it was tough to make ends meet in an expensive place like Santa Barbara (especially with taxes taking up to a third of his two incomes). But Castillo enjoyed his life here, spending days off going on trips with family and friends, hitting the Wildcat for a drink, hanging out at the beach, or taking a hike on one of the many trails in the region.

He says he felt like part of the local community. He renewed his DACA status each year, made all his proper appointments, and didn’t have anything on his record other than a speeding ticket or a minor traffic violation.

He had plans for the future, with his partner and his career. He had a lease on an apartment and payments on a new car that he would be paying off for the next few years. It all seemed to be going smoothly until September 16.