On Monday morning, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old college student from Georgia, made an illegal turn on a red light. Now, through no fault of her own, she is facing the possibility of deportation — and in the Trump administration’s frenzy to rid the country of every undocumented immigrant, America is at risk of losing yet another young person chasing the American dream.
Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the White House has portrayed its ramped-up deportation efforts as an effort to protect Americans from criminal migrants. The detention and possible deportation of Arias-Cristobal make a mockery of such claims.
We already know that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans and are less likely to be incarcerated. But Arias-Cristobal’s case highlights how Trump’s constant depiction of migrants as marauding invaders has meant that all undocumented immigrants are treated like criminals, even those who are contributing members of society.
We already know that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans and are less likely to be incarcerated.
Arias-Cristobal was taken into custody because she didn’t have a Georgia state driver’s license, though, often in such cases, the police issue a citation rather than arrest the driver. During booking, when asked her residency status, it became clear that she was in the country illegally and was turned over to ICE. She was then taken to a detention center three hours from her home, wearing chains around her wrists and ankles.
Supporters of the president’s zero-tolerance immigration policy will argue that Arias-Cristobal could have sought a path to citizenship, but, in reality, there is no way for her to get legal status. She arrived in America at the age of 4 with her parents, who entered the country illegally. (She is being held in the same ICE detention center as her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, who was arrested two weeks ago on a separate traffic stop.)
In the past, she could have registered in the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, which defers deportation every two years, but Trump ended it in 2017.
Now there are zero options for her. As her state representative, Kacey Carpenter, a Republican, pointed out to a reporter at WTVC in Chattanooga, Tennessee: “There is not a pathway for someone that is in America right now towards citizenship, unless they get married or they have a child, and the child grows up and the child’s 18, then they can petition for their parents. But as far as an individual that’s between the ages of four and 25, there’s no pathway.”
Dustin Baxter, Arias-Cristobal’s lawyer, told me her detention is a direct result of the Trump administration’s unforgiving immigration policies. If Arias-Cristobal had been pulled over on Jan. 19, “nothing would have happened. She would have been cited, not arrested.” But because of the Trump administration’s zero release policy, she is stuck in an ICE detention center. Baxter tells me that his office, which specializes in immigration matters, is seeing “hundreds of cases like Arias-Cristobal’s” when, during the Biden administration, “they didn’t see any similar cases.”
Arias-Cristobal, who ran cross country in high school and was an honors student, can hardly be considered a threat to society.
The same can be said of her father. He owns a local business and has no criminal record. In a public announcement about his detention, the Department of Homeland Security said Tovar had “ample opportunity to seek a legal pathway to citizenship,” but Baxter scoffed at the notion. “That’s not how the immigration system works. If people didn’t get legal status before, it’s not because they were thumbing their nose. Our laws are old and antiquated, and they don’t provide a path for people in the country illegally to get status.”
Amazingly, though he came to the U.S. illegally as an adult, Tovar may have a better chance of staying in the country than his daughter.
Arias-Cristobal, who ran cross country in high school and was an honors student, can hardly be considered a threat to society.
Since Tovar is in removal status, he can apply for cancellation of removal on the grounds that deporting him would harm his children, who are American citizens. But for Arias-Cristobal, the options are more limited. Before Trump took office, immigration judges were given some leeway to use discretion in allowing undocumented migrants like Arias-Cristobal to stay in the country. But “that was done away with at the beginning of the Trump administration,” says Baxter.
It’s become a bit of a cliche to say we’re a nation of immigrants, but it’s also a fact. As her 12-year-old sister, Aurora, who was born in America and thus is an American citizen, told Newsweek about her parents: “They’re not criminals, and they’re good people who came here to make a living for themselves. They came here for a better future, a bright future, and they came here to work and not to be criminals.” How many generations of Americans can tell the same story? How does it benefit America to tell people who view this country as a land of opportunity and who are seeking a better life for their children that they are criminals and don’t deserve to live among us? How is deporting Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old college student with a bright future ahead of her, making America great again? Trump’s supporters will repeat the same mantra as White House press secretary Katherine Leavitt, that all undocumented immigrants are criminals. In reality, that’s not true — simply being in the country illegally is not a crime; it’s a civil violation. But, in practice, it’s simply bad policy and fundamentally damaging. Ximena Arias-Cristobal and her father are the kind of people we should want in America. They are little different from the generations of Americans who helped to build this country and, yes, make it great. Deporting a man who has planted deep roots in America benefits no one. Treating a 19-year-old — who has lived virtually her entire life in America — as an alien and an “other” to be feared makes no one’s life better. “Ximena speaks with a Southern twang,” says Baxter. “She has no memory of Mexico. She doesn’t have the paperwork to prove it … but she’s as American as my own kids.” But because of one wrong turn, Ximena’s American dream has turned into a nightmare. And all of us are poorer as a result.
Michael A. Cohen is a political writer and a fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. 
