Washington, DC – As graduation ceremonies take place around the country, and families prepare to celebrate the hard work of bright minds, the Trump administration’s detention, targeting, and deportation dragnet is ensnaring students and young people – U.S. citizens and Dreamers alike. As America’s Voice has been highlighting in the weekly, “This is What Mass Deportation Looks Like” series, the chaos and cruelty that is central to this agenda has a ripple effect that include harms and fears to local communities and economies.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Graduation should be a time of celebration and hope, not fear and dread. The Trump Administration is instilling fear, trampling dreams, and erasing the future with its deliberate targeting of young people – Dreamers and U.S. citizens alike – who are simply trying to better their lives and contribute to America. Arriving in America at the innocent age of 4, Ximena is now a 19-year-old college student classmate, babysitter, and friend in her Georgia town, studying and succeeding and trying to give back. How does it make sense to detain her or the thousands of other Dreamers like her who are living in fear and uncertainty at this moment? It doesn’t. Even young people who are US citizens are getting caught in Trump’s deportation dragnet. Americans are recoiling in horror, calling for a better way that lives up to our values and advances our interests rather than indiscriminate detentions and deportations.”
See below for a few of the most egregious examples of young people being targeted and in the news this week:
In Georgia, “Georgia teen detained by ICE after mistaken arrest says detention was ‘life-changing’ – ABC News”: “ Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was arrested on May 5 in Dalton, Georgia, when her dark gray truck was mistaken for a black pickup that made an illegal turn. Those citations were later dropped once officials realized there was a mix-up, Dalton Assistant Police Chief Chris Crossen said. But she was still detained by ICE after it was discovered she was an undocumented immigrant. As she was being transferred to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, she stopped at some offices in Atlanta, she said. “They had me in a room by myself for nine hours. I didn’t know what was going on. It was never explained,” Arias-Cristobal told Chattanooga, Tennessee, ABC affiliate WTVC Thursday after her release from detention. “Being in Stewart changed my life. It’s something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It’s life-changing.”
In Alabama, “US citizen detained by immigration officials who dismissed his Real ID as fake“: “Authorities wrestled a US-born citizen to the ground, cuffed him and dismissed his so-called Real ID as ‘fake’ during an arrest operation targeting undocumented people on Wednesday under the direction of the Trump administration, according to a viral video and reporting by Telemundo. Leonardo Garcia Venegas, 25, was at his construction job in Foley, Alabama, when officials arrived to arrest workers there. Garcia Venegas – who was born in Florida to Mexican parents – began filming the arrests with his mobile phone before officials reportedly knocked the device out of his hand and tried to arrest him as well. Video of the arrest shows three officials wrestling him to the ground, while he yells: ‘I’m a citizen!’ … According to an interview with the Spanish-language US news outlet Telemundo, officials took out his wallet, removed his ID – which complies with higher federal security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses as well as identification – and told him that it was fake.”
In New York, “A Bronx high schooler showed up for a routine immigration court date. ICE was waiting”: “Normally, a court date like Dylan’s would have been relatively straightforward. But when Dylan and his mom arrived at immigration court at 290 Broadway in lower Manhattan, the government lawyers made an unusual request. They asked the judge to dismiss the deportation proceedings against Dylan, according to his mom and lawyers. But when Dylan’s deportation proceedings were dismissed, his asylum claim was too, leaving him without legal protection and allowing the government to initiate an expedited removal … After Dylan’s case was dismissed, Raiza said two men entered the courtroom and then followed her and Dylan outside and into the elevator.”
