In a case that’s drawing significant social media attention, a Georgia college student and her father are being held in the same immigration detention center and facing deportation after they were separately stopped by police for driving without valid licenses.
Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was arrested May 5 after a police officer thought she ran a stop sign. Officers then turned her over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for a deportation hearing, although police later dropped the traffic charges against her, according to local media reports.
Also being held in the same facility, the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, is her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, 43, ICE officials said. Arias-Tovar was stopped for speeding in April and, like his daughter, was unable to provide a valid driver’s license, ICE said. Arias-Tovar is also not accused of any violent crime.
The pending deportation of Arias-Cristobal is drawing fresh attention to the Trump administration’s muscular new approach to immigration enforcement. Although President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign said his administration would focus primarily on violent criminals living illegally in the United States, ICE agents have also been targeting foreign college students and other people who lack any history of violent crime.
ICE officials said both Arias-Cristobal and Arias-Tovar admitted they were living in the United States without permission. Arias-Cristobal said her parents brought her across the Mexican border when she was an infant, and that she was too young to apply for protection under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, her attorney told local media.
“The family will be able to return to Mexico together,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a social media 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.”
Online, some critics of the Trump administration have used the case of Arias-Cristobal and her father to argue deportation priorities are misplaced, and to highlight the seemingly arbitrary nature of their detentions. But other commenters have noted that both were living illegally in the United States, which though illegal, has typically been treated as a civil infraction. Trump has promised to deport 1 million people a year.
While some states permit people living illegally in the United States to get driver’s licenses, Georgia bans the practice.
The Republican member of the Georgia legislature who represents the area where Arias-Cristobal and her family live wrote a letter to the judge overseeing her case, asking for lenience.
“I understand that we’re deporting people, but can we focus on people that are trying to be a danger to society, and not people that are here through no fault of their own, that are an asset to the community, that are providing opportunities moving forward for community, for the state,” Rep. Kasey Carpenter told WTCV.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ICE detains Georgia college student and dad in same detention center
