José Barillas Trennert is not even an American citizen, much less a Federal employee.  He has not been nominated by the President, nor confirmed by Congress.  He never went through any training on immigration law or enforcement procedures.  In fact, he is an employee of a foreign government.  Worse yet, he is an accredited minor diplomat from the Republic of Guatemala to the United States—not even in the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, DC, but a consular official in Los Angeles, CA. 

Strange days, but here is the story:  a Guatemalan illegal alien, Gilmer Barrios, was arrested by the Border Patrol in Southern California and removed from the United States using Expedited Removal (ER).  ER is the legal process to remove illegal aliens arrested in the United States who have been in the United States less than two years.  ER has no appeals other than to a deciding officer’s supervisor, so it skips the immigration court bureaucracy of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) so beloved of the Treason Bar and illegal aliens.

However, Barrios, for some strange reason, was allowed back in the United States at the instance of our new Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent, Consul General José Barillas Trennert.

Gilmer Barrios only grabbed a sweater, his cellphone, an expired ID, mask and gloves and went to the border Thursday after spending 21 days in Tijuana, Mexico. U.S. officials who had deported him under irregular circumstances were waiting for him on the other side.

“I’ve been told that the immigration agents have been waiting for me since 3:30 p.m. at the guard post,” he said over the phone, before getting in a car to meet with them.

Carlos Rafael Oliva Calderón, the Guatemalan consul in Tijuana, was going to accompany him to the border…

Barrios, 28, was arrested March 23 by immigration authorities in southern California and was deported four days later. After Telemundo News reported on Barrios’ deportation under irregular circumstances, Oliva Calderón sought out his counterpart in Los Angeles, contacted the federal government and warned Mexican immigration authorities.

[Guatemalan Suddenly Deported Under Coronavirus ‘Emergency’ Measures Readmitted,  To U.S., by Damià Bonmatí, NBC/Noticias Telemundo, April 17, 2020]

The reporter, Damia Bonmati, implies but does not forthrightly state that Barrios was arrested and removed under the special protocols for prohibiting entry of any alien across the Mexico-United States border based on public health requirements.  Bonmatí claims there was no due process, but ER is due process and is the legal process for removing any illegal alien who has less than two years in the United States.  Nowhere does the reporter claim or present proof that Barrios was in the United States more than two years.

The reporter does claim that Barrios had an case in immigration court, but that just doesn’t sound correct.

Gilmer Barrios’ case suggests border agents used the new emergency powers to deport an immigrant who had an open case in U.S. courts and no deportation order…

Emilio Amaya, Barrios’ legal representative, hopes to have him released on bail soon. He said his client doesn’t have a deportation order. He does, however, have a pending case in immigration court to remain in the country legally, in part thanks to his wife, who is a U.S. citizen.

Note the emphasis that there was no deportation order, which is irrelevant, as Barrios was likely removed under ER, but, again, the reporter leaves out any clarifying information.  Now, we are expected to believe that Barrios was in removal proceedings, but if arrested by the Border Patrol while at work, why didn’t Barrios tell the arresting officers that he had previously been placed in removal proceedings with the EOIR? 

And if he was in removal proceedings and married to a U.S. citizen, he would have qualified to apply for employment authorization.  That is the first thing illegal aliens do when applying for adjustment of status or when in removal proceedings.  Both sets of applications are generally submitted together.  Now, perhaps, Barrios was in removal proceedings but had been denied employment authorization or never applied, but there would have been a record of that and the removal proceedings. 

All aliens arrested have their records checked, and either the employment authorization or the removal proceedings would have appeared in that check.  The Border Patrol Agents would have released him if he they confirmed that Barrios was in removal proceedings and had not absconded. So Barrios either did not tell the arresting officers or, more likely, there are no removal proceedings, nor any employment authorization.

Most likely is that Barrios is not in removal proceedings, but only applied to adjust status in the United States based on a marriage to a U.S. citizen.  This seems likely, as the reporter keeps emphasizing that Barrios was married to that U.S. citizen.  Now applying to adjust status does not give one any legal immunity, whether one is legally present while applying or if in the United States illegally.

Sadly, both ICE SVU and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the interior enforcement component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the benefits adjudication component of DHS respectively, have an unofficial amnesty program for illegal aliens who apply to adjust status, that being they are not immediately arrested when encountered or when applying for adjustment.  However, the Border Patrol does not have that policy. 

The Border Patrol arrests all illegal aliens it encounters, and Barrios was encountered in the United States and he was either an overstay from a lawful admission or he entered illegally (entry without inspection).  Our Mexican reporter does not give us any of these details, so any conclusions are based on limited evidence.  But we can safely conclude that Barrios was not in removal proceedings, and was therefore eligible to be removed by ER if he was in the United States two years or less.  That is the only legal issue, was he in the U.S. more than two years, but that is not answered by the reporter, likely because he was not.

The most telling evidence is that Barrios was arrested at work, and since he had no employment authorization, was not authorized to work in the United States.  This is conclusive, as Barrios was eligible to at a minimum to apply for employment authorization, but did not if he was in removal proceedings or had applied for adjustment of status.  Combine this with the fact that he did not tell the arresting agents that he was already in removal proceedings, we can conclude that he is lying.

The real question is why did the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) allow this illegal alien back in the United States after he was removed?  There is no confirmation that he was either ERed or removed under the special provisions and he remains in custody, which suggests that all is not as claimed in the story.  In any event, the Border Patrol and CBP should not be responding to demands from diplomats to allow illegal aliens to re-enter the United States.  If Barrios did not like being in Tijuana, he could have returned to Guatemala, but he did not.  He was clearly planning to re-enter, mostly likely illegally, but could not risk getting caught again.

There is something wrong here, but it is that CBP and Border Patrol are being run by a foreign power, not that an illegal alien was deported quickly and without appeals.