CT woman gets Homeland Security email to leave country despite being a US citizen

A Cromwell woman was left stunned after getting an email from the federal government telling her to leave the country, but she said she was born a U.S. citizen and has never been in trouble with the law.
“It is time for you to leave the United States.” That’s the first sentence Lisa Anderson saw in an email she got from the Department of Homeland Security on Friday.
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“The language seemed pretty threatening to whomever it might actually apply to,” she said.
She thought it was spam at first, but the email was very real after Anderson had it vetted.
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What created confusion is that Anderson, who’s a physician and lives in Cromwell, was born in Pennsylvania and is a U.S. citizen.
“I really have no idea how my email ended up on that list unless someone else was using that as a false email,” Anderson said.
She now carries her passport on the advice of attorneys and is looking for representation from an actual immigration attorney, worried about legal repercussions, something Anderson never thought she would ever need.
“I don’t have anything to do with immigration and I never thought that I would have needed the services of an immigration attorney either, and that’s where I find myself,” she said.
This comes just days after two Boston immigration attorneys got the same email from DHS, despite being U.S. citizens themselves.
A senior DHS official told NBC Boston that Customs and Border Protection has been sending these emails to people who do not have lawful status in the U.S., saying:
“If a non-personal email-such as an American citizen contact-was provided by the alien, notices may have been sent to unintended recipients. CBP is monitoring communications and will address any issues on a case-by-case basis.