An immigrant mother in Phoenix, Arizona, granted leniency during former US president Barack Obama’s administration on Thursday was deported to Mexico in what activists said was an early example of how US President Donald Trump plans to carry through on his vow to crack down on illegal immigration.
The case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos became a rallying cry for immigrant groups who believe Trump’s approach to immigration will unfairly tear apart countless families.
Her arrest prompted a raucous demonstration in downtown Phoenix late on Wednesday as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a US immigration office. Seven people were arrested.
Photo: The Arizona Republic via AP
Garcia de Rayos on Thursday evening said that she did not regret her decision to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), despite knowing she would risk getting arrested.
Garcia de Rayos spoke from the Kino Border Initiative, a soup kitchen and shelter in Nogales, Mexico, where many migrants go after being deported. Her US citizen children were by her side, their first time in Mexico, their mother said.
“I’m doing this for my kids so they have a better life. I will keep fighting so they can keep studying in their home country,” she said. “We’re a united family. We’re a family who goes to church on Sundays, we work in advocacy. We’re active.”
Garcia de Rayos was deported at about 10am from a Nogales border crossing and ICE worked with Mexican consular officials to repatriate her, agency spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said in a statement.
Her case underwent a thorough review that determined the 35-year-old mother of two children with US citizenship had no “legal basis to remain in the US,” Pitts O’Keefe said.
“ICE will continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts,” she added.
Garcia de Rayos said she was not sure what comes next for her, but that her parents, who live in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, are headed to Nogales to reunite with her. Her attorney, Ray Ybarra Maldonado, said there were not many legal avenues for her to come back to the US.
“Getting back to the US, legally, there’s really no route for her. There’s no avenue for her. There’s no application she can submit. There’s no waiver she can submit,” Maldonado said. “I mean, this is a prime example of our failed immigration system.”
Advocates denounced the deportation as heartless.
“ICE has done what President Trump wanted to do, which is deport and separate our families,” said Marisa Franco, director of the Phoenix-based advocacy group Mijente. “We are going to stand strong with the family.”
Garcia de Rayos was among workers arrested years ago in one of then-sheriff Joe Arpaio’s first investigations into Phoenix-area businesses suspected of hiring immigrants who had used fraudulent IDs to get jobs.
She was not arrested in a raid of the park, but was taken into custody six months later when investigators found discrepancies in her employment documents. She pleaded guilty in March 2009 to a reduced charge of criminal impersonation and was sentenced to two years of probation. She was placed into deportation proceedings, but given leniency under Obama administration guidelines that targeted immigrants who had committed dangerous crimes.
On Wednesday, she showed up with her lawyer for a routine check-in with ICE officials and was detained instead of being allowed to leave after checking in.
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