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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was locked in a van that was stopped in the street by protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Wednesday in Phoenix.
PHOENIX >> An immigrant mother in Phoenix granted leniency during the Obama administration was deported to Mexico Thursday in what activists said was an early example of how President Donald Trump plans to carry through on his vow to crack down on illegal immigration.
The case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos became a rallying cry for immigrant groups who believe Trump’s approach to immigration will unfairly tear apart countless families.
Her arrest prompted a raucous demonstration in downtown Phoenix late Wednesday as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a U.S. immigration office. Seven people were arrested.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer referred questions on the matter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday that the agency “will remove illegal aliens convicted of felony offenses as ordered by an immigration judge.”
Garcia de Rayos was deported around 10 a.m. from a Nogales border crossing and ICE worked with Mexican consular officials to repatriate her, agency spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said in a statement. She said her case underwent a thorough review that determined the 35-year-old mother of two children with U.S. citizenship had no “legal basis to remain in the U.S.”
“ICE will continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts,” Pitts O’Keefe said.
Advocates denounced the deportation as heartless.
“ICE has done what President Trump wanted to do, which is deport and separate our families,” said Marisa Franco, director of the Phoenix-based advocacy group Mijente. “We are going to stand strong with the family.”
Garcia de Rayos was among workers arrested years ago in one of then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s first investigations into Phoenix-area businesses suspected of hiring immigrants who had used fraudulent IDs to get jobs.
She was accused of using a Social Security number belonging to another person to get a job at the Waterworld amusement park in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale.
Garcia de Rayos was not arrested in a raid of the park, but was taken into custody six months later when investigators found discrepancies in her employment documents. She was denied bail in January 2009 under an Arizona law that prohibited it for immigrants who are in the country illegally and charged with felonies.
Garcia de Rayos pleaded guilty in March 2009 to a reduced charge of criminal impersonation and was sentenced to two years of probation. She was placed into deportation proceedings but given leniency under Obama administration guidelines that targeted immigrants who had committed dangerous crimes.
On Wednesday, she showed up with her lawyer for a routine check-in with ICE officials and was detained instead of being allowed to leave after checking in.
Immigration activists who anticipated she could be arrested rallied in front of ICE offices, and advocacy groups who took Arpaio to court over his immigration enforcement say they now face the same struggle with Trump over deportations.
Garcia de Rayos’ lawyer, Ray Ybarra Maldonado, said Arizona’s identity theft laws are the reason his client was put on the radar of immigration authorities. He said the Arpaio raids terrorized the community.
Arizona’s ID theft laws were amended in 2007 and 2008 as part of a package of laws aimed at confronting businesses that hired people in the country illegally. The laws led to the arrest of 700 workers, mostly immigrants.
Maldonado said his client’s deportation could push immigrants deeper into the shadows and to avoid checking in with authorities like Garcia de Rayos always did.
“My advice is, let’s look for a sanctuary, a church that might want to take you in if you want to do that. It’s not fun walking someone to the slaughter. It’s not fun walking in and then walking out without them,” he said.
Ahead of Garcia de Rayos’ deportation, dozens of immigration activists Wednesday night blocked the gates of ICE’s Phoenix office.
Police took positions around the building and confronted some of the demonstrators, many of them chanting “Justice!” in English and Spanish.
Seven protesters were arrested, said Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Howard.
The deportation of Garcia de Rayos came days after the Trump administration broadened regulations under which some people will be deported.
She came to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Guanajuato when she was 14 and has two children who are U.S. citizens, said the Puente Arizona immigrant advocacy group based in Phoenix.
Why are we reading about one (1) woman felon being deported to Mexico? We should be reading about thousands of illegal immigrants being deported to the countries from which they came. Get with it, President Trump.
The media rallying cry to bring more protesters to the scene.
Darn media call it ‘tear apart families’ . BS, they can take their brood with them to Mexico!
Awesome!!!!!!!!!! 1 down, 6 million to go! And kick those kids out as well, they’re illegal too!!
Those deceiving Mexican women sneak in to give birth to their irresponsibly conceived brood to abuse our laws and the tax payer. Leniency! The hell, give them the boot. Unfortunately their brood has sneaked US citizenship due to an insane law that awards them citizenship when their mothers carry them illegally in the womb across the border. That law rewarding criminals should be torn to pieces and trampled on the floor!
If she did everything legally to begin with she wouldn’t have been deported. Her anchor babies can go back with her so her family isn’t split. I don’t feel sorry for anyone who breaks the law.
She had 20+ years to do things right. I feel sorry for person that she stole SSN from. I crime is a crime, if she did things right, she could have stayed. Those that feel sorry for her, why don’t you lost your ID and SSN online so other illegals can steal their identity too.
Yes. As much as I feel sorry for her and her children, she basically committed a pretty serious crime, one for which even American citizens would be jailed. She had 20 years to try to become a citizen as many immigrants already do. If any of us tried to do the same in another country such as Japan or Russia, we’d soon find ourselves kicked out, too. And they wouldn’t take 20 years to do it!
Exactly, if we were to adopt Mexico’s laws regarding illegal, and even legal immigration, they would stay home and overthrow the narcocracy that rules Mexico.
ICE should come to Kona and look at all the contruction companies from the mainland who bring them in to work cheap. All the coffee & mac nut and avocado farms have a lot of illegals living here. They bring their families here, they don’t speak english, the kids in school hold back the local kids, because teachers need to stop and pay more attention to the hispanic kids because of no child left behind law. smdh
LOCK HER UP….in Mexico!
Where is Chuckie Schumer’s tears when you need it???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ULkINCDiIA
I have a conservative / liberal stance on this. She was working so at least she wasn’t like all the welfare chronic folks in our system. She did break a law but it was so she could work. It wasn’t like she was selling meth on the corner or mugging people. She was working at a water park.
Lets create a WORK VISA program and collect the taxes from the employers who are mostly Democrat leaning and force them to pay these people what they are worth. Yes DEPORT real criminals; not people like this woman.
You mean like the “working” and “student” visas I see many foreign Asians getting in Hawaii and don’t even go school and instead work in the bars? Trust me I know some!! One even was here on a student visa, didn’t even go to school for one day, worked at the bars, married a friend, as soon as they had a kid, she wanted a divorce. Great visa program we have here. This is not just an isolated case. It’s not just the Arabs or Hispanics, it’s Asians here in Hawaii. Why are there many foreigners in the assisted public housing and welfare when the locals are on the streets?
Cubby-they already have a work visa program. We don’t mind refugee’s, as long as it is done legally. This was obviously an exception to the what we want.
I do feel kind of sorry for her plight, but in the end she got due process….she went thru the court system before she was deported back to Mexico…having said that I don’t believe she was a threat to the country and the government should focus more on illegals who have committed acts of violence, drug dealing or others who are involved in gang activities…..
She was absolutely a threat. The article sugar coats it but she is guilty of identity theft. Is that not enough for you? Do you know how damaging identity theft is to the victim?
“…Trump plans to carry through on his vow to crack down on illegal immigration”.
THIS… is why Trump was elected POTUS folks !!!!