JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A 19-year-old immigrant from Mexico without legal status was detained by immigration enforcement in Georgia after a traffic stop. Now, her lawyers say she may have a chance at a visa to stay in the U.S. because police admitted the traffic stop was a mistake. Sofi Gratas from Georgia Public Broadcasting reports.
SOFI GRATAS, BYLINE: In a plain, white room in an Atlanta law office, college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal steps to a podium bristling with microphones and explains why, in what should arguably be one of the best times of her life, she's too scared to even go outside.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
XIMENA ARIAS-CRISTOBAL: Since I've gotten back, I haven't been out because I do live in fear now. So does my family. I used to run every single day, go to the gym, hang out with friends.
GRATAS: Arias-Cristobal was brought to Dalton, Georgia, by her parents from Mexico at the age of 4, a few years after the time frame that would have qualified her for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which offers temporary protection from deportation to certain children of migrants. She had no path to legal status. Her life was upended in early May after a traffic stop.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: I'm 10-4. One female, 95.
GRATAS: Police dashcam video of her arrest shows an officer pulling her over because he thought she had made an illegal turn. Arias-Cristobal had been driving with an international license that ultimately didn't protect her.
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UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Have you ever been to jail?
ARIAS-CRISTOBAL: No, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Well, you're going.
GRATAS: She was taken to the county jail, which cooperates with federal immigration enforcement authorities under a program known as 287(g). Arias-Cristobal ended up at an immigrant detention center in South Georgia. Reaction back home was swift and negative.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Ximena belongs. Ximena stays. We won't look the other way.
GRATAS: In the week after her detention, friends, family and community supporters demanded Arias-Cristobal's release at a protest outside Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's district office. This county voted overwhelmingly for Trump last year. Greene, who represents the area, has pledged full support for Trump's immigration crackdowns. And yet, over half of Dalton's population is Latino. Many residents came here in the 1980s from Mexico to work in the carpet industry, like Jose Morales' family.
JOSE MORALES: Dalton has been my home my entire life, but, you know, until recent times, it just doesn't feel the same.
GRATAS: He said he's felt a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, making life scary, even for him, a U.S. citizen. County records show that this year, at the local jail, federal immigration officers have already requested holds of immigrants without legal status twice as often as last year. Morales sees the effects.
JOSE MORALES: Well, it's happening every day. So you might not see a lot of Latinos out here, because they're scared.
GRATAS: Kasey Carpenter, a Republican who represents Dalton in the state legislature, says before the election, he would tell his constituents that they would not be targeted by immigration enforcement.
KASEY CARPENTER: I tried to calm everybody's nerves and say, look, this is not what they're going to do. They're going to be getting criminals out of here.
GRATAS: Not people, he thought, like Ximena Arias-Cristobal, who attends the same church as him. Now, Carpenter is taking out a position at odds with fellow Republicans.
CARPENTER: Yes, we want to get rid of criminals. Yes, we want to protect the - or shut down the border crossings. But we also need to figure out some kind of mechanism so that we're not taking good people out of communities.
GRATAS: Ultimately, all charges against Arias-Cristobal, including that of driving without a license, were dropped when police admitted that the officer had pulled over the wrong car. The officer resigned, saying the department stayed silent in the face of, quote, "widespread defamation" and that he now fears backlash from the community. Arias-Cristobal was granted bond after about two weeks in ICE detention. Now, Dustin Baxter, one of her lawyers, says her arrest may pave her pathway to legal status through a U visa, which are for people who have been victims of a crime.
DUSTIN BAXTER: If we can show that she was, in fact, the victim of an arrest that should never have occurred, or a false arrest, and we get the cooperation of the city of Dalton, then we can apply for a U visa.
GRATAS: The city of Dalton did not want to comment on the case. Baxter says Arias-Cristobal's next immigration hearing will likely be next year.
For NPR News, I'm Sofi Gratas in Atlanta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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