‘I can’t keep fighting the system’: DACA recipients are leaving the U.S., disheartened by years of instability, abuse
‘I feel like a drug case’: DACA recipients’ struggles to remain in the U.S
This time, a Mexican-American father who had been living and working in San Francisco for 30 years said his immigration status was finally in jeopardy.
Carmen Garcia, an undocumented father of four and single mother of two, was sitting in her car in her garage, waiting for a friend to pick her up Friday afternoon in a routine traffic stop.
But when ICE agents arrived at the scene, an ICE officer ordered Garcia, 30, out of her vehicle and into an interview room.
Her immigration status had been in question for the past six months after she was arrested at a homeless shelter in Oakland, California, in 2014 and deported in 2016.
A spokesman for ICE said the agency was acting on a recommendation from the Department of Homeland Security. Garcia was a target of a priority immigration removal order from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
‘I feel like a drug case’: DACA recipients’ struggles to remain in the U.S
In recent weeks, several news and technology organizations have interviewed Garcia — whom ICE said could face criminal charges if she is found in the U.S. The Los Angeles Times shared photographs she sent from prison.
At the height of her ordeal, immigration advocates told NBC News and other media organizations that Garcia had been left in her garage without food and water for days at a time.
Garcia was finally reunited with her children and husband in a San Francisco suburb. She is married to an American citizen with ties to Oakland and is pregnant with her fourth child, who was born in the U.S.
This is not the first time a DACA recipient has been detained by ICE. In May, a DACA recipient who was also a father of four was taken into custody at gunpoint by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the San Francisco International Airport. The man was taken to a federal detention center in Louisiana.
‘I feel like a drug case’: DACA recipients’ struggles to remain in the U.S
While Garcia was taken into
