I’m taking a second shot at this issue, as I have yet to see it written about here other than my hurried diary before work this morning.
Yesterday, Guadalupe García de Rayos (pictured above) reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Phoenix, Arizona, as she has every year since 2008, since her conviction for identity theft for using a fake Social Security Number for her employment at the Golfland Sunsplash amusement Park in Mesa, Arizona.
This, of course, was her first check in since the beginning of the Trump administration, and she was arrested, separated from her husband and children, and placed in a van to be transported to...well...her husband and children were unsure as of midnight last night... but has now been by CNN that she has been deported to Nogales Mexico.
Ms. Rayos entered the U.S. without papers in 1995, when she was fourteen years old, presumably brought here by her parents, but I can find no confirmation of this. She was arrested at her place of employment in a raid ordered by everyone’s favorite, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Her conviction for using a fake SSN (not a stolen was as is being reported breathlessly on Right Wingnut Radio) was a felony rap and she spent 6 months in jail for her crime. But back then we had a sane President and as Guadalupe was employed, had lived in Arizona for 14 years, was not a threat to anyone, and was the mother of two small children born in the States, Obama’s ICE allowed her to stay, provided she check in yearly.
CNN writes:
“But her meeting Wednesday with immigration officials ended differently than others over the last eight years: She was taken into custody and ordered to be deported.
"Lupita has been doing yearly check-ins with ICE and nothing happened," said Lucy Sandoval, an activist who has been working with Garcia de Rayos' family. "But this is a different time."
Immigration advocates said they believe the woman's detention reflects the Trump administration's hard line on illegal immigration.”
Rayos with her son (right) and daughter, Jaqueline yesterday.
“On Thursday, after learning the news that she’d been deported, her children broke down crying. Jacqueline Garcia de Rayos, 14, described having to pack her mother’s luggage so she could send it to Mexico.
“I don’t think it’s fair that she was taken away from us,” Jacqueline said. “Her only crime was to work here so she could support us.
“She is a very kind person,” Jacqueline said. “She treats everyone like family. She hasn’t done anything to harm anyone.”
Rayos was brought to the United States as a minor, she married here, has children who are United States Citizens, was gainfully employed here for 22 years while she raised her family. She committed a crime which is routinely committed every day by people who are willing to work and a crime that is routinely winked at by employers. She went to a scheduled meeting with ICE and was detained, put in a van, spirited off to God Knows Where for the night and deposited in Mexico, a country she has not lived in for 22 years.
“Ray Ybarra Maldonado, the immigration attorney representing Garcia de Rayos, said his client was not deemed a priority for deportation under Obama because the administration’s focus was on deporting immigrants who were a threat to public safety, had ties to gangs or had committed serious felony offenses. Garcia de Rayos didn’t fit that criteria, he said, which is why she was allowed to stay in the US.
“I think this is a direct result of the new executive orders by the Trump administrationthat are being put into action,” Maldonado said about Garcia de Rayos’s deportation.
He also said the order “has nothing to do with public safety” and “has everything to do with separating families”.
“All because she was trying to work to support herself and her kids – which is the same thing any of us would’ve done if we were in her situation – she was criminalized, given a class 6 felony and now she finds herself on the other side of the border,” Maldonado said.”
