Nicole Micheroni, a U.S. citizen and immigration attorney from Massachusetts, was stunned when she received an email from the Department of Homeland Security telling her to leave the country within seven days. Her shock turned to concern for others who might be receiving similar deportation notices by mistake.

According to DHS, these deportation warnings may have been sent to unintended recipients due to a system that uses known email addresses associated with cases — regardless of whether the person in question is even eligible for deportation. That means citizens, advocates, and legal representatives could all receive threatening government messages meant for someone else.

This isn’t a small mistake. This is a terrifying failure of responsibility. And it raises serious questions about how many people have been wrongfully contacted, how DHS plans to fix this, and whether this is a one-off slip or something far more systemic.

We call on the Department of Homeland Security to:

• Publicly audit and disclose the full scope of these wrongful notices
• Issue written clarifications and apologies to any U.S. citizens mistakenly targeted
• Implement strict verification protocols before issuing future removal communications
• Allow Congressional oversight into the systems and decisions that caused this mess

No U.S. citizen should ever be told to “leave the country” by their own government. We must stand up and demand accountability now — before more lives are disrupted by careless bureaucratic errors.

Sign the petition to protect your fellow Americans and call for real reform within DHS.