The Trump administration has demanded 3,000 immigration arrests per day, putting migrant communities in the US on notice. Almost a month after the arrest, the Georgia University student said she is still struggling to comprehend how her life has been changed. One morning in early May, she was stopped for a routine traffic stop: turning right on a red light.
The next thing she knew, she was in a detention centre, waiting for a court date for her deportation. That experience is something I’ll never forget. It left a mark on me, emotionally and mentally,” Arias Cristobal said during a news conference on Tuesday, recounting her time at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
“What hurts more,” she added, “is knowing that millions of others have gone through and are still going through the same kind of pain”. Rights groups say her case has become symbolic of an American “dragnet” policy of deporting immigrants of all origins, regardless of whether they are criminals or not.
President Donald Trump had campaigned for a second term on the promise that he would remove “criminals” who were present in the country “illegally.”.
But while he steps up his “mass deportation” crusade from the White House, critics charge that immigration agents are rounding up immigrants from diverse backgrounds — irrespective of how small a threat they are.
“Those quotas they are trying to advocate for [are] creating this reality on the ground where ICE is just trying to catch anybody they can,” said America’s Voice executive director Vanessa Cardenas, an immigrant advocacy organization. She said the most vulnerable group includes young, undocumented immigrants called Dreamers.
