Dalton, Georgia — Local authorities in Dalton, Georgia, on Monday dismissed the traffic charges that led Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain a 19-year-old Mexican-born college student who has lived in the United States since she was 4.
Ximena Arias Cristobal, who is in the country without authorization, was taken into ICE custody earlier this month after a May 5 traffic stop in Dalton, where she lives with her family. Local police cited her for making an improper turn and driving without a license before booking her into the Whitfield County Jail in Dalton, where she was picked up by ICE officers.
But the Dalton Police Department and the city’s prosecutor announced on Monday they had reviewed dashboard camera footage of the traffic stop and determined that the officer had stopped the wrong vehicle. Officials said the vehicle that made the improper turn was similar to the truck Arias Cristobal was driving.
Arias Cristobal is now facing deportation and remains detained at the Stewart ICE detention facility in Lumpkin, Georgia, according to the agency’s online system for tracking detainees. Her father, Jose Francisco Arias Tovar, is also being held there. ICE arrested him last month, also following a traffic stop, his family said.
ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on what actions, if any, it would take in response to the decision by authorities in Dalton to drop the traffic violations against Arias Cristobal.
In a statement before Monday’s announcement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Arias Cristobal an “illegal alien” who had “admitted to illegally entering the United States.” McLaughlin said Arias Cristobal’s father, Arias Tovar, “self-admitted that he is in the country illegally.”
Federal officials have not disputed that Arias Cristobal and her father lack criminal records.
“[The] family will be able to return to Mexico together,” McLaughlin said in her statement. “Mr. Tovar had ample opportunity to seek a legal pathway to citizenship. He chose not to. We are not ignoring the rule of law.”
According to her family, Arias Cristobal came to the U.S. in 2010 and graduated from Dalton’s high school last year. She did not qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program for other undocumented immigrant “Dreamers” who came to the U.S. as minors because she arrived after the policy’s June 2007 cutoff date.
During a press conference on Monday, Chris Crosser, the assistant Dalton police chief, expressed regret about his agency’s mistake. But he said he could not opine on how ICE should treat Arias Cristobal’s case going forward, given the new information. He said local officials notified her lawyers of the dismissed charges but did not alert ICE.
“It’s a very regrettable place that we are right here, that we’ve ended up in this place with the way this unfolded and the way it turned out,” Crosser said, adding that an internal review of the incident is ongoing.
Arias Cristobal’s lawyers said their client is likely to remain in ICE custody for now, even after the dismissal of the charges, since federal officials are holding her because she’s in the U.S. without legal permission. They said she has a bond hearing scheduled for next week.
Arias Cristobal’s arrest is one of several high-profile cases of undocumented immigrants being arrested by ICE during the Trump administration, despite living in the country for many years and lacking criminal histories.
Soon after President Trump took office, his administration dramatically expanded who could face arrest and deportation, reversing Biden-era rules that largely limited ICE operations to arrests of serious criminals, national security threats and recent arrivals in the U.S. illegally.
While Trump administration officials have said they will prioritize the arrest of dangerous individuals who are in the U.S. unlawfully, they have stressed that no one will be protected from deportation if they lack valid immigration documents.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.
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