A police officer who mistakenly took a young woman into custody over a traffic stop in Georgia before she was transferred to ICE detention has resigned, police in Georgia confirmed.
In an email to CBS, City of Dalton spokesperson Bruce Frazier stated that the Dalton Police Department had “no statement” on the officer’s “resignation” and that “I also don’t have information on his reason for resigning.” The officer was not identified.
The retirement follows an incident on May 5 in which 19-year-old Ximena Arias Christobal was stopped for making an unlawful turn by the officer before being booked into the Whitfield County Jail in Dalton, Georgia.
Arias Christobal, an undocumented immigrant who arrived from Mexico at the age of four, was later transferred to ICE custody.
A week later, officers checking the dashcam tape of the arrest discovered that Christobal was driving a truck similar to the one that had committed the traffic violation, and the first officer had made a mistake in apprehending her.
The charges against her were then dropped. In the video, an unnamed officer can be heard asking the young woman, “Have you ever been to jail?”
After she says “No, sir,” he says, “Well, you’re leaving.”
Christobal pleaded that she had college exams and that her family relied on her, but it was in vain.
ICE freed her from detention on May 22 after an immigration judge granted her bond, but she still faces deportation to Mexico, a nation she has not seen since she was a tiny girl, as ICE pursues a deportation case against her.
Her father was also detained by ICE around the same time period, after being pulled over for a traffic check.
The Department of Homeland Security stated that Arias Cristobal and her father should face “consequences” for unlawfully entering the United States.
Given her time in the United States and lack of a criminal record, people of the local community, including the Republican lawmaker who represents Dalton in the Georgia legislature, have expressed support for Arias Cristobal and urged for her release.
When it was established that the youngster had been arrested in error, support for her grew stronger.
