A massive spike in recalendared immigration cases in San Diego and across the U.S. has brought many people who thought their cases were over years ago back into deportation proceedings, including one man who’s been in the U.S. for nearly 40 years.

Jose Juan Cazares-Moreno, of Imperial, has been in the U.S. since 1988 as a green card holder. For the first time in nearly a decade, he was scared to return to immigration court Tuesday.

“I have everything here. I've been here all my life,” Cazares-Moreno said. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I move to – if they take me out to Mexico.”

He has a misdemeanor conviction from 2001 that was later expunged. A deportation case against him was administratively closed – essentially, put on pause – in 2016 when the government decided he wasn’t a prior

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