SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Silvia Reyna, a Sacramento-area undocumented woman who is suing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor for sexual harassment, re-entered the United States on Wednesday — three weeks after she was wrongly deported, her family said.

Accompanied by her daughter Briana Hernandez, Reyna crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro, south of San Diego, at 8 a.m, Wednesday, where an ICE agent was waiting to take her into custody.

“We had gotten a court-approved emergency stay before her removal (on Oct. 25),” said Reyna’s son, Francisco Govea, a U.S. Army veteran.

Reyna’s family said they had been pursuing a petition to establish legal residency for Reyna when she was deported. Govea said one of his mother’s lawyers had obtained a court order to prevent her deportation, but the stay was secured after-hours on the evening of Oct. 24, a Friday night. Despite repeated efforts throughout that night and into the next morning, lawyers for Reyna were not able to notify ICE agents of the order. Reyna was deported in the early morning hours of Oct. 25.

Since then, Reyna had stayed with family until her lawyers could arrange her return to the U.S. and her surrender to ICE custody so she could continue pursuing legal residency through what is known as an I‑130 petition, Govea said. As a U.S. citizen, Govea had applied to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to get his mother on a path to legal residency in the United States.

“It’s been horrible,” Govea said of his mother’s ordeal, which along with deportation, includes being detained and incarcerated by ICE on Sept. 11. A 52-year-old mother of eight, who raised a family in the Tehama County town of Corning, Reyna was deported ten days after her story of accusing an ICE contractor of repeated sexual harassment first appeared in The Bee.

Reyna’s lawyers filed her 14-page lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court on Oct. 14. It named as defendants BI Inc., which develops electronic monitoring systems for ICE and other government agencies, and Luis Ruiz and Montserrat Esquivel, two individuals the suit says are BI employees.

Due to her undocumented status, Reyna was required to meet regularly with ICE, and she often traveled 114 miles from her apartment in Corning to Sacramento, where she met with employees of the ICE contractor.

Reyna’s suit alleges that Ruiz, her case specialist, harassed her between March 2023 and November 2024, when she said she complained to Ruiz’s employers about his conduct. “Ruiz, who had access to (Reyna’s) cell phone number, engaged in unwelcome sexual harassment of Plaintiff, including calling her on her phone, calling her by video, texting pictures of himself naked with an erect penis, and sending videos of himself masturbating. Ruiz also attempted to coerce (Reyna) for sexual favors, stating words to the effect of, ‘If you’re good to me, I’ll be good to you,’” the complaint says.

Along with the lawsuit, Reyna’s family filed a report with the Sacramento Police Department. Sgt. Dan Wiseman, a department spokesman, confirmed that the report had been filed and was being investigated.

Officials from BI Inc. said in October that they were taking Reyna’s allegations seriously.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy as it relates to such matters and take steps to ensure a thorough investigation of all related complaints,” said Christopher V. Ferreira, director of corporate relations for BI Inc., which is owned by the Geo Group Inc., according to the complaint.

Reyna’s family and her complaint state that she would “shake with fear” every time she had to meet with Ruiz.

“Before the sexual harassment began, I do recall my mom saying, ‘He’s yelling at me. I answered his question a minute late, and he’d yell, why aren’t you answering me?’ He was getting very hostile with her,” Reyna’s daughter Patrisia Reyna told The Bee. “She was panicking every time she had an appointment. She told me she didn’t want to attend her meetings, but of course, if she didn’t attend, that would cause a warrant to occur. I just remember her crying.”

When she was deported, her family despaired that her case might be swept under the rug and, they worried that Reyna had been deported expressly because she had gone public with her allegations. Reyna’s family said their mother had endured sexual harassment silently for 18 months because she felt her status left with no rights or ability to confront her alleged abuser.

As a family, they decided that they had to speak up. They say they took their complaints to BI Inc. but, as a precaution, Reyna shared lurid photos that Ruiz allegedly sent to her the night before she complained to the ICE contractor.

Part of Reyna’s suit alleges that Bi Inc. employees “took” her phone while she filed her complaint and returned it to her with evidence of harassment deleted. Govea said his family didn’t trust the ICE contract employees to believe her story, so the family preserved some photos and messages, some of which have been shared with The Bee.

“With all things happening, we have to keep fighting,” Govea said Wednesday.

“To have her back in the country, we’re one step closer to having her home.”

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