Federal Immigration Officials Wrongfully Told Fox Valley Man to Leave U.S.

When Neenah resident Tom Frantz got a pair of identical emails on Friday, April 11 that said they were from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, he just shrugged it off at first, believing it was spam.

But then, he said, he read the email more closely, and was “really bothered” by the content.

The email said Frantz — a 68-year-old retired college administrator and teacher, and American citizen born in western Pennsylvania — was in the United States on humanitarian parole and his parole was being terminated.

“If you do not depart the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States,” the email stated.

“Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you,” it added. “Please depart the United States immediately.”

Frantz has never been on or applied for humanitarian parole. He’s lived in the Fox Valley since moving in 1981 for a job at what is now the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh at Fox Cities.

Because of the threatening nature of the email and the lack of information about what to do if you were a U.S. citizen who received the notification, Frantz said he decided to do some research. He discovered that an immigration attorney in Massachusetts received a similar letter from immigration officials.

“I thought, ‘Boy, if an immigration attorney is alarmed about this, then I should be, too, and I should pay attention to what is being said here,’” Frantz said.

He said he was worried about the possibility of immigration officials showing up at his home, arresting him and ultimately deporting him. As a retiree, he said he was also worried about a reference in the letter to losing benefits because he spent years paying into Social Security and Medicare.

“I was not naive enough to believe that the government never makes a mistake,” he said. “But my fear was that it could compound. And if it compounded, then what were the consequences for me?”

Frantz spent much of that Friday debating what to do about the letter. He ultimately decided his best bet would be to reach out to one of his representatives in Congress. On Monday morning, he said he left a voicemail with U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office and received a phone call less than an hour later.

“After I contacted Sen. Baldwin’s office, they were working [on] it right away,” Frantz said. “I felt like I had an advocate, somebody who really understood my situation and knew the inner workings of government to try to address it.”

Baldwin’s office got in contact with the Department of Homeland Security, and discovered the email was incorrectly sent to Frantz.

The notice that Frantz received went out to email addresses in the Customs and Border Patrol Home App, according to Baldwin’s office. The emails typically belonged to a person applying for parole or asylum, immigration lawyers, non-governmental organizations and financial supporters of applicants.

Frantz said he did not use the app or fit the description of those categories. He still isn’t quite sure why he received the email. Baldwin’s office says it has been in contact with federal immigration officials to ensure the issue was resolved.

While he says the Department of Homeland Security didn’t apologize to him directly, he says the department did apologize through Baldwin’s office. Frantz said the department reached out with a number of questions, and he got the sense “they were trying to figure out what went wrong.”

If Baldwin’s office hadn’t worked with him, Frantz said he planned to reach out to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s office and the office of Rep. Glenn Grothman.

“Had none of them responded … I probably would start carrying around different forms of identification, birth certificate and other stuff, to prove citizenship,” Frantz said.

The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Frantz’s situation and why he received the notification.

In a statement, Baldwin criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the situation, which could have resulted in the wrongful detention or deportation of a Wisconsinite.

“This is completely illegal — President Trump is trying to deport an American-born, law-abiding citizen and has provided absolutely no justification,” Baldwin said in a statement. “The President cannot kick Americans out of the country just because he wants — no one is above the law, including the President.”

In reflecting on the situation, Frantz said he’s lucky because he knew how to find help. He said he expects that more U.S. citizens likely received similar emails by mistake.

“If I’m getting this, and that attorney in Massachusetts also got it, there’s probably a lot of other people who got this,” he said. “We don’t know how many people are on the distribution list.”

“I think it’s important that people stay vigilant and that they take emails seriously. Don’t click on the links, but investigate them,” Frantz added. “If it looks legitimate, I would definitely treat it as legitimate, and I would seek assistance from officials.”

Listen to the WPR report

‘The federal government will find you’: Immigration officials wrongfully told a Fox Valley man to leave the US was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.