Caroline Dias Goncalves, the University of Utah student who was abducted by Stephen Miller’s mass deportation agents following a routine traffic stop earlier this month, has finally been freed after two agonizing weeks in ICE custody. In remarks following her release, the Dream.US scholar described her 15 days in a Colorado private prison as the hardest of her life.
“I was scared and felt alone,” said the 19-year-old Dream.US scholar, describing inedible food and women packed into a single cell. Contact with her loved ones was limited. “I was placed in a system that treated me like I didn’t matter.” But Dias Goncalves also shared that once guards found out that she could speak English, their treatment of her improved. It’s something she viewed as fundamentally unfair.
“That broke my heart,” she said. “Because no one deserves to be treated like that. Not in a country that I’ve called home since I was 7 years old and is all I’ve ever known.” Her nightmarish ordeal began with what appeared to be a routine traffic stop that then became anything but routine, The Salt Lake Tribune reports:
Dias Goncalves was arrested by federal agents on June 5 while driving through Colorado to visit a friend. They learned of her location after secretly accessing communications from a deputy who had earlier pulled her over during a traffic stop, according to an investigation by the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.
During the traffic stop, the deputy could be heard on recently released body camera video asking where Dias Goncalves was born. That deputy — identified by the sheriff’s office as Alexander Zwinck — has since been placed on leave.
Colorado law doesn’t allow for officers to ask about a person’s immigration history. The sheriff’s office is also investigating whether Zwinck shared information about Dias Goncalves’ legal status in any Signal messages, which ICE agents were allegedly able to access.
Her abduction drew national outrage, as one of the escalating number of high school and college students to have been unjustly targeted in the first months of the second Trump administration.
In Georgia, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, also a Dream.US scholar, was detained after being pulled over for what local police initially claimed was a traffic violation. Following her release from CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Center, Arias-Cristobal said there were “a lot of people” at the privately operated prison also deserving of justice. In Massachusetts, ICE also detained honors student Marcelo Gomes da Silva while he was on his way to volleyball practice. “He said he served as a translator for the other men in the room and cried when he informed them that their paperwork said they were being deported,” CBS News reported.
The administration’s anti-immigrant obsessions have even left many international students wondering whether an education in the U.S. is worth the risk at all. One student who was admitted to the public policy doctoral program at Harvard Kennedy School said Trump is “simply too unpredictable.”
Like other immigrant students who have won their freedom from ICE detention following a court order, Dias Goncalves also shined a light on others who are still detained and separated from their loved ones.
“I hope no one else has to go through what I did,” she said. “But I know that right now, over 1,300 people are still in that same nightmare in that Aurora detention facility. They are just like me—including other people who’ve grown up here, who love this country, who want nothing more than a chance to belong.” As a shocking report newly reveals, Miller’s mass deportation agenda has contributed to abhorrent conditions within ICE facilities. “Records of hundreds of emergency calls from ICE detention centers obtained by WIRED—including audio recordings—show a system inundated by life-threatening incidents, delayed treatment, and overcrowding.”
“I’m going to try to move forward now—to focus on work, on school, and on healing,” Dias Goncalves continued. “But I won’t forget this. And I hope others won’t either. Immigrants like me—we’re not asking for anything special. Just a fair chance to adjust our status, to feel safe, and to keep building the lives we’ve worked so hard for in the country we call home.”
At the age of seven, the now 19-year-old Caroline Dias Goncalves moved to the United States from Brazil. She is a student at the University of Utah, a former high school lacrosse and track runner, and a friend to many. Full story: https://tinyurl.com/m872um3r
— ABC4 Utah (@abc4utah.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T16:30:21.547Z
That stability is long overdue for Caroline Dias Goncalves, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, Marcelo Gomes da Silva and millions of others, said TheDream.US President & CEO Gaby Pacheco. While programs like DACA have helped hundreds of thousands of young people experience transformational changes, many others can’t apply due to anti-immigrant lawsuits. Meanwhile, an overwhelming 81% of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for young immigrants, according to Gallup polling from last year.
“When Caroline walked out of the detention facility, I saw two other young people released beside her. My heart broke,” Pacheco said. “How many more youth are being funneled into this system of cruelty, locked up for simply existing in the only country they’ve ever known? We are hurting our nation—and our very soul—when we target immigrant youth this way. One traffic stop. One unlawful arrest. And a lifetime of trauma. Enough is enough.”
“Instead of more detentions, and deportations, America’s interests and values are better served by delivering education and legal status for Caroline and other Dreamers,” Pacheco continued.
