PORTLAND –– A Portland resident is on his way back to the United States this week after ICE deported him to his native Guatemala in an apparent case of mistaken identity.

Domingo Tot Quip, 31, was at a bus stop in Portland on Jan. 14, waiting to take a bus to work, when he was picked up and taken to an ICE facility, according to his attorney, Kerry Doyle, a partner at Green and Spiegel Immigration Law in Boston.

“He was deported by ICE because they thought he was somebody else,” she said.

Doyle said ICE deported Tot Quip within a week of his arrest, still believing he was someone else who was scheduled for removal. Doyle said agents misidentified him despite his having a Guatemalan passport and identification card in his backpack.  

Doyle said she also did not believe agents checked his fingerprints, took his photograph, or made any other effort to confirm his identity.

“I’m still baffled on how that could have happened,” she said.

Tot Quip has been working in Portland as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. Doyle said she found out about the arrest when his coworkers contacted her office. She filed a petition on Tot Quip’s behalf in Federal District Court in Massachusetts on Jan. 26. Not long after that, she said, ICE agents realized they might have made a mistake.

Now, the government has agreed to return Tot Quip to Portland, volunteering to pay for his air fare, and even paying to replace his Guatemalan passport. 

“They’re bringing him back, because of this mistake,” she said.

Doyle said it’s not clear yet whether she will be suing the government on Tot Quip’s behalf. Right now, she said, a number of unanswered questions remain, such as why it took more than six months to return Tot Quip once ICE officials realized they had erred.

Doyle also wants to know who actually picked Tot Quip up in the first place – ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol or another agency – before he wound up in ICE custody.

Doyle said she also wants to know what happened to Tot Quip’s belongings, most of which were never returned. She said she also doesn’t know why no one attempted to confirm his identity before deporting him. 

Another man was arrested along with Tot Quip in the same incident. That other man, Doyle said, was properly identified and deported. Since neither were arrested in an area agents could expect to find them, she believes they were racially profiled.

“I can’t think of how else they could have been picked up,” she said. “I mean, they were sitting at a bus stop.”

Regardless of what action Doyle takes at a later date, she said she hopes the Cumberland County District Attorney’s office or the Maine Attorney General’s office will investigate the incident.

“Maine’s becoming more diverse, and I think that anyone targeted because of the color of their skin or because of otherwise how they look doesn’t seem to be what Maine should stand for, and I don’t think that’s what Mainers want moving forward for their state,” she said.