US citizen mistakenly told to ‘leave’ country in 7 days

Nicole Micheroni, a resident of Massachusetts, was shocked when she got an email from the US government telling her to leave the country.

The message said her “parole status" had ended and that she had seven days to leave.

But Nicole is a US citizen — born in Newton and raised in Sharon — so the email made no sense, reports NCB news.

“I thought it was for a client at first,” she said. “But then I saw it had only my name on it.”

Nicole is also an immigration lawyer. Her name and email show up on a lot of her clients’ paperwork, which may have led to the confusion.

“The email sounded very threatening,” she said. “It didn’t even look that official — it looked more like a scam — but it was real.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security explained that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was sending emails to people who don’t have legal status in the US to tell them their parole was ending.

They used the email addresses they had on file, and in some cases, those emails belonged to someone else — like an American citizen — if that person’s email had been listed by mistake.

CBP says they’re keeping an eye on the situation and will fix any mistakes one at a time.

World