Twist in case of glamorous teenager, 19, detained by ICE after illegally turning at a red light
In a surprising turn of events, authorities have sensationally dropped the traffic charges that landed a 19-year-old college student in ICE custody — after cops admitted they mistakenly stopped the wrong car.
Ximena Arias Cristobal, a Mexican-born student who has lived in the United States since she was four, was taken into ICE custody following a May 5 traffic stop in Dalton, Georgia, where she lives with her family.
She was cited for making an improper turn and driving without a license, then booked into the Whitfield County Jail, a move that triggered her transfer to ICE custody.
The Dalton Police Department and the city prosecutor, however, revealed they had reviewed dashcam footage from the stop and determined the officer had made a mistake.
The vehicle that committed the traffic infraction was similar in appearance to the truck Arias Cristobal was driving, they said.
Despite the charges being dropped, Arias Cristobal remains in ICE custody and is now facing deportation. She is being held at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, according to ICE's online detainee tracking system.
Her father, Jose Francisco Arias Tovar, is also detained at the same facility. He was arrested by ICE last month following a separate traffic stop in Tunnel Hill, the family said.
Ximena Arias Cristobal has lived in Georgia since she was four. But due to local law enforcement's strict coordination with ICE, she was swiftly transferred to Stewart after the May 5 traffic stop, according to ABC 9.
The 19-year-old student was shackled at the wrists and ankles as she was brought into the facility, where she is expected to remain for over a month before appearing before a judge.
After being pulled over, Arias Cristobal told the officer she had an international driver's license — but did not have it with her at the time.
Online jail records show she was initially arrested for driving without a valid license and for failing to obey traffic control devices — both of which have now been dismissed.
Arias Cristobal had previously attempted to apply for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) after arriving in the U.S. in 2010, but her mother said the program had ended a year before they crossed the border.
DACA allowed undocumented children brought to the U.S. to apply for deportation deferral every two years. The program has been closed to new applicants for several years.
During her booking at the jail, Arias Cristobal was asked about her immigration status — a routine part of intake at Whitfield County that often leads to ICE referrals.
In a twist of fate, Arias Cristobal is being held in the same facility as her father, Jose Francisco Arias Tovar, who was detained in Tunnel Hill two weeks earlier for speeding.
Attorney Terry Olsen warned the teen's mother may be next. 'It's likely Arias Cristobal's mother will be 'arrested or detained within a month or so,'' he said.
Jones said Arias-Cristobal had babysat her children for years, and added: 'We adore her.' She told the outlet that the teenager is 'the most precious human' and believed her international license allowed her to drive legally
Jones said Arias Cristobal had babysat her children for years and added, 'We adore her.' She also told the outlet the teen is 'the most precious human' and believed her international license allowed her to drive legally.
Arias Cristobal's younger sister spoke emotionally about the family's journey: 'They came in with big dreams because they wanted a big future for my older sister. And, you know, my sister goes to college, and she was an honor student since middle school.'
'And she runs. She loves to run. It's her passion, and the only reason they came is to follow my sister's dreams,' her sister added.
Their mother, speaking through the younger daughter, said: 'My dad has his own company, and they called a lawyer to see if they could get a job permit or a visa, and they said that they hadn't hit that status to get one yet.'
Georgia State Representative Kacey Carpenter also weighed in, writing a letter on the teen's behalf: 'The reality is, the conversation has always been that we need to get hard criminals out of the country.
'Unfortunately, the people that aren't hard criminal are getting caught up in the wash. It seems like we are much better at catching people that [are] committing misdemeanors than people that are actually a danger to society.'
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Kristi Noem: the made-for-TV official executing Trump's mass deportations
Little more than a year ago, Kristi Noem's political prospects appeared to be in freefall. The then South Dakota governor was criss-crossing the country on an ill-fated book tour, widely seen, at least initially, as an audition to be Donald Trump's running mate. Instead, Noem found herself on the defensive – a position Trump never likes to be in – after revealing in her memoir that she had shot the family's 'untrainable' hunting dog, a 14-month old wirehair pointer named Cricket. Even in Trumpworld, where controversy can be a form of currency, the disclosure shocked. In the weeks that followed, she faded from contention and the breathless veepstakes rumor mill moved on. By the time Trump selected JD Vance as his vice-presidential nominee, Noem's path forward on the national stage was unclear. But a year is a lifetime in politics, the saying goes. 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In a social media post, a flak jacket-clad Noem cheered the arrests of 'Human traffickers. Drug Smugglers. 18th Street Gang members' while toting a semi-automatic rifle pointed toward an agent's head. 'Kristi Noem doesn't know how to hold a gun or run the Department of Homeland Security,' the Arizona senator Ruben Gallego, a Democrat who served as a lance corporal in the US Marines, chided on X. At a recent Senate hearing, Noem defended her travel, saying that her on-the-ground presence 'meant the world' to staff and personnel after four years of what she has described as neglect by Biden administration officials. But even allies have occasionally winced at the pageantry. Conservative media personality Megyn Kelly said Noem was doing an 'amazing' job protecting the homeland, but, on an episode of her eponymous podcast, begged her not to 'cosplay Ice agent'. The former Fox News host, gesturing to her own cascading tresses and studio make-up, said of Noem: 'She looks like I look right now, but she's out in the field with her gun being like: 'We're gonna go kick some ass.'' 'Just stop trying to glamorize the mission,' Kelly advised. Noem has long been deliberate about shaping her public image. As governor in 2019, she installed a 'six-figure TV studio' in the basement of South Dakota's capitol building, according to a local news investigation. (Noem's office told the outlet the expense was far less than flying to the nearest studio for her frequent Fox News appearances.) In her second term, she starred in a series of workforce recruitment ads, appearing as a nurse, a plumber and a highway patrol officer in an effort to attract job seekers to the state. 'Kristi Noem, you might say, is very public-facing,' said Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University in South Dakota, who has observed Noem's political career. 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Wearing combat boots, an Ice baseball cap and a $50,000 Rolex on her wrist, she toured a notorious Salvadorian prison holding scores of Venezuelan migrants deported from the US. Standing in front of a cell packed with prisoners bare from the waist up, Noem spoke into the camera: 'If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face.' On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the men sent to El Salvador must be given a chance to challenge their removals, finding that many had likely been imprisoned on the basis of 'flimsy, even frivolous, accusations' of gang membership. DHS said it provides adequate due process to all deportees. In public statements, officials at DHS and the White House repeat that their mass removal effort targets the 'worst of the worst'. 'We are focusing on dangerous criminals,' Noem said during a Sunday appearance on Fox News. 'We are going out there and ensuring that people that repeatedly break our laws are being held accountable.' But the far-reaching campaign has ensnared legal residents, children with cancer and even US citizens. In multiple instances, the administration has blamed 'administrative errors' for deporting Salvadorians who had court orders protecting them from removal. This week, the government returned to the US a Guatemalan man wrongfully deported to Mexico. 'The administration wants to project fear and cruelty, with no limits as to how far they will go,' said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the pro-immigration advocacy group America's Voice. 'It's working in the sense that it is creating fear. There are pockets of communities that are changing their whole lives to adjust to the fact that our government is now using all its levers to go after immigrants.' A self-described 'farm kid' who took over her family's ranch after her father's sudden death, Noem catapulted to national prominence during the Covid pandemic. As governor of South Dakota, she mirrored Trump's handling of the virus, denouncing mask mandates and stay-at-home orders even as her state struggled, at times mightily, to contain its spread. In 2020, Noem feted Trump in South Dakota with a star-spangled Independence Day celebration. It was then that Noem famously gifted him a 4ft replica of Mount Rushmore that depicted his likeness alongside the faces of the four presidents carved into the granite over the Black Hills of South Dakota. 'At that point, she went all in and being Maga really became a part of her image,' Schaff said. Noem worked studiously to burnish her national profile, becoming a regular presence in conservative media. She adopted Trump's rhetoric, especially on border security. Despite South Dakota's considerable distance from the US-Mexico border – roughly 1,000 miles north – Noem made the issue a top priority. 'South Dakota is directly affected by this invasion,' she declared in an address last year. 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The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
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BreakingNews.ie
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