DALTON, Ga. — A Whitfield County teenager is now facing deportation because of what police now call a regrettable mistake.
Police charged 19-year-old Ximena Arias-Cristobal with making an illegal right turn last week. Now they say they got the wrong car.
Arias-Cristobal has lived in the U.S. since her parents brought her here illegally from Mexico when she was four.
But now, because of what Dalton police are calling a regrettable mistake, she could be deported back.
Police released dashcam video on Monday that showed the moment an unidentified Dalton police officer arrested Arias-Cristobal for making an illegal right turn and not having a driver’s license.
“Have you ever been to jail?” the officer is heard asking Arias-Cristobal on the video.
“No, sir,” she answered.
“Well, you’re going,” the officer told her.
Arias-Cristobal was taken to the county jail. where deputies determined she was in the U.S. illegally and alerted Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which took her, and is now holding her in a detention center in South Georgia.
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The problem is Dalton police now admit the arrest was wrong.
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot was at the remarkable, impromptu news conference Monday night, where Dalton police admitted the officer in the video stopped the wrong car and that Arias-Cristobal hadn’t committed the violation.
“While we certainly regret the circumstances that led us to where we are here today, we always feel like it’s best to make sure that we make corrections,” Dalton Police Deputy Chief Chris Crossen said.
But now ICE is holding Arias-Cristobal, an honor student in a local college, and she could be deported back to Mexico.
Police admit there’s really nothing they can do about that except alert her attorneys that the city is dropping the charges.
The city administrator, Andrew Parker, said they did that the second they reviewed the tape on Monday.
“When I was notified, we got the city attorney, the city prosecutor to review the facts. I mean, all that occurred this morning,” Parker said.
Arias-Cristobal’s family was not at the news conference, but some friends were, and they say they’re not satisfied with what they heard.
Elliot reached out to ICE for comment on this story, and while they said they may issue a statement, he has not yet heard from them.
Her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, is also in ICE custody, arrested after a traffic stop.
The Department of Homeland Security released a statement to Newsweek on Friday, saying: “The family will be able to return to Mexico together.”
In a post on a GoFundMe set up to help with the student’s legal fees, it said: “Ximena is in good spirits in Stewart, and her attorney has already filed a motion for bond.
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