A doctor from Connecticut has said she was shocked to receive an email from the U.S. government’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) telling her to leave the country, despite being an American citizen born in Pennsylvania.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” read the message sent to Lisa Anderson of Cromwell, who said she had at first assumed it was spam.
“The language seemed pretty threatening to whomever it might actually apply to,” she told NBC Connecticut.
“I really have no idea how my email ended up on that list unless someone else was using that as a false email.”
Anderson said she has since taken to carrying her passport with her at all times as proof of her citizenship status and is actively looking for an attorney to represent her in case agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should attempt to apprehend her.
“I don’t have anything to do with immigration and I never thought that I would have needed the services of an immigration attorney either, and that’s where I find myself,” she said.
“It does make me concerned there are a lot more people out there like me who probably also thought this was spam, who probably didn’t realize, ‘I have a problem.’”
The incident occurred days after a Boston attorney, who specializes in immigration law, received the same email.
A senior DHS official told NBC in response to that story that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been sending out the messages people who do not have a lawful right to be in the U.S. but added: “If a non-personal email – such as an American citizen contact – was provided by the alien, notices may have been sent to unintended recipients.
“CBP is monitoring communications and will address any issues on a case-by-case basis.”
Donald Trump’s administration is currently mounting a major crackdown on illegal immigration under “border czar” Tom Homan, with the president promising the biggest mass deportation in American history on the campaign trail last year.
However, its efforts have already run into problems, the latest of which finds the administration refusing to comply with a federal court order instructing it to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Maryland after he was wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador by “administrative error”.
