Stories of immigration detention centers are already upsetting enough, but can you imagine how traumatic it must be for legitimate U.S. citizens to be put through this process? It happens more often than you’d think.

As Vice News reports, since 2003, over 20,000 U.S. citizens have been either wrongfully detained or outright deported from the country by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Let’s be perfectly clear: U.S. citizens are absolutely protected constitutionally from being deported or even detained in this manner. However, the system we have in place is such a mess that a large number of Americans slip through the fairly wide cracks and become unjust victims of ICE.

Jacqueline Stevens, director of the Deportation Research Clinic at Northwestern University, has studied these accidental detentions and deportations and found them to be surprisingly, and horrifyingly, common. Since there’s no official citizenship database, even U.S. citizens can have trouble proving they were born in the country, as even the current president can attest.

On top of that, immigration courts are overwhelmed, meaning many cases are pushed through quickly without proper research. People accused of being in the country illegally aren’t even guaranteed legal representation; As such, many go through the process without understanding their own rights or someone to help verify their citizenship. Essentially, the system is so flawed that wrongful deportations are the natural conclusion. “It would be truly shocking if this did not result in the deportation of U.S. citizens,” Stevens said.

ICE Has Accidentally Deported Thousands of American Citizens | Care2 Causes