Washington, DC – There was a bondage on the wrist. Her hips. Her ankles.
Remembering of being held remains plagued by 19-year-old Ximena Arias Cristobal, even after being released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.
Almost a month after her arrest, a University of Georgia student said she was still working on how her life changed. One day in early May, she was pulled for a minor traffic stop: turn right onto the red light. The next thing she learned was that she was in a detention center and was facing the court date for her deportation.
“That experience is something I will never forget. It left me mark both emotionally and mentally,” Arias Cristobal told a news conference Tuesday, recounting her time at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
“It hurts more,” she added. “I know millions of other people are experiencing it and still experiencing the same type of pain,” she added.
Rights advocates say her story has become a symbol of the US “draget” deportation policy. This targets immigrants of all backgrounds, regardless of whether they have a criminal history or not.
President Donald Trump has run a second-term campaign on a pledge to expel “criminals” who were “illegally” in the country.
But when he stepped up his “massive deportation” campaign from the White House, critics say immigration agents are targeting immigrants from a variety of backgrounds — no matter how much they place risks, no matter how much they place risks.
Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of American Voice, an immigration advocacy group, said:
She described young, undocumented immigrants known as dreamers as one of the most vulnerable groups.
“In Dragnet, other people and others who have been in the United States for a long time have been established and deeply rooted dreamers over the years,” explained Cardenas.
Vulnerable groups
A dedicated runner studying finance and economics at Dalton State College, Aria Scristobal is one of the 3.6 million people known as dreamers. Many were sent to the United States as children, sometimes accompanied by family members, only others.
For decades, the US government has struggled with how to handle young, undocumented arrivals to the country.
In 2012, then-President Barack Obama announced his new enforcement policy, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). It provided temporary protection against deportation to young immigrants who had been living in the United States since June 2007.
Approximately 530,000 dreamers are protected by DACA status. However, Gaby Pacheco, leader of immigration group Thedream.us, said the number represents a small portion of the total population of young migrants facing deportation.
Some arrived after the cutoff date of June 15th, 2007, but others were unable to apply. In recent years, processing of new applications has been suspended. Legal challenges for DACA continue to pass through the federal court system.
“Sadly, I’ve had multiple dreams over the last few months.
She noted that 90% of the dreamers her organization supports in her first year of higher education are not protected under DACA or other programs.
She said the last few months revealed “painful truths”: “The dreamer is under attack.”
Setting quotas
But supporters like Pacheco have warned that the first few months of the Trump administration may merely be a harbinger of what will happen next.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller notified ICE agents that the Trump administration had increased its daily quota of immigrant arrests from 1,000 to 3,000 per day.
The current draft of Trump’s budget law, known as one big beautiful bill, would surge an estimated $150 billion in government funding for deportation and other immigration-related activities. The bill will pass narrowly through the House and is likely to be taken up by the Senate in the coming weeks.
Despite supporters claiming that Trump portrays the United States as a nation with foreign criminals, both actions could mean a significant scale in immigration enforcement.
Research has repeatedly shown that undocumented immigrants have fewer crimes, including violent crimes, than US-born citizens.
The available data also raises questions about Trump’s claim that there are many undocumented criminals in the country.
According to a report by the TRAC Research Project, arrests and deportation rates remain roughly the same as when Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden, took office.
From January 26th to May 3rd, during the first four months of Trump’s second term, his administration made an average of 778 immigrant arrests per day. That’s just 2% higher than the average for the last few months of Biden’s presidency of around 759.
The number of daily removals or deportations under Trump was actually one percentage point lower than Biden’s daily rate.
“More and more pushback”
Pacheco and Cardenas warned that the pressure to increase arrests and deportation could lead to more desperate tactics.
The administration has already rejected policies that ban immigration enforcement in sensitive areas such as churches and schools. They also sought to use the Wartime Act of 1798 to quickly expel gang members without legitimate procedures and revoke temporary protections that allowed some foreigners to legally remain in the country.
To increase immigrant arrests, the Trump administration has also pressured local officials to coordinate with ice. Under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the administration even delegated certain immigration powers to local law enforcement agencies, including the right to make arrests of immigrants and screen people for deportation.
In one example in early May, the Tennessee Highway patrol was coordinated with ice in a traffic stop sweep, leading to nearly 100 immigrant arrests. Another major operation in Massachusetts in early June led ICE to arrest 1,500 people.
The mass arrest wiped out was Marcelo Gomez da Silva, an 18-year-old high school student on his way to volleyball practice. His arrest sparked protests and condemnation in Gomez da Silva’s hometown of Milford, Massachusetts.
Cardenas pointed to the pouring of support for Arias Cristobal as evidence of these demonstrations and the growing rejection of Trump’s immigration policy.
“I think we’ll see more pushbacks from Americans,” she said.
“That being said, my belief is that this administration has all the intentions to implement the plan…and if Congress gives them more money, they’re trying to chase after our community.”