In Dalton, a community rallies for the release of student detained by immigration officials

DALTON, Ga. — Dalton resident Hannah Jones said she never worried about having 19-year-old Ximena Arias-Cristobal drive her kids during babysitting gigs. 

“And she thought she was perfectly safe in that regard,” Jones said while sitting in a parking lot ahead of a demonstration against Arias-Cristobal’s detainment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Arias-Cristobal, who grew up in Dalton, had been driving with an international driver's license from Mexico. She came to the U.S. without legal status with her family when she was 4 years old, and after 2007, outside the window which would have made her eligible for status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. 

When she was pulled over by an officer of the Dalton Police Department on May 5, she was arrested for driving without a valid U.S. license. The officer also said she’d made a traffic violation. On Monday, the Dalton Police Department released a statement saying the charges against Arias-Cristobal had been dropped — the officer had meant to pull over someone else. 

But Arias-Cristobal remains in ICE detention at Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia. Her family and friends are hoping she gets a chance at release at a bond hearing before her first appearance in court on June 11. 

“There is no existing pathway for these individuals, so it doesn't really matter what you think she should've done,” Jones said. “None of this has been her fault. Turns out she didn't even turn right on red.” 

On Wednesday, the crowd of over 100 people who protested against Arias-Cristobal’s detainment included some of her friends. 

Jennifer Enriquez, an 18-year-old, met Arias-Cristobal about a year ago and grew closer to her when they both enrolled at Dalton State College. Enriquez said that she was devastated to hear the news about Arias-Cristobal’s arrest, and hopes that she feels supported by the protest. 

“Just to show her how much support she has, you know, to make her feel like she's loved and that we have a lot of people waiting for her back home,” she said. 

Students without legal status, like Arias-Cristobal, are able to attend public Georgia colleges, though they are not eligible for in-state tuition or the HOPE Scholarship. 

Other demonstrators, like Katherine Clark, showed up because of their dissatisfaction with how Arias-Cristobal has been treated. 

“She’s barely more than a child," Clark said. "To think that she’s in an ICE detention center … If you can’t be moved by that, I don’t know what you could be moved by."

Caption

A couple hundred people protested in Dalton against the detainment of student and longtime resident, Ximena Arias-Cristobal, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. Arias-Cristobal was arrested by local police during a traffic stop and sent to an ICE detention center in South Georgia shortly after, because she does not have valid U.S. citizenship. Whitfield County law enforcement has one of the longest standing partnerships with federal immigration enforcement in Georgia.

Credit: Sofi Gratas/GPB News

Signs showed support for Arias-Cristobal, but also dissatisfaction with the federal immigration crackdown nationwide, and local law enforcement’s part in it. 

Whitfield County has one of the longest-standing partnerships with federal immigration enforcement in Georgia under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), according to an agreement signed between the agencies in 2009. Under it, the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office agrees to process people charged with a crime in their custody with similar means as federal agents, and notify ICE if they’re found to not have legal U.S. citizenship. ICE can then request jails hold that person, so-called “ICE detainers,” and take them into their own custody, or allow the jail to release the person on their own schedule with their own charges. 

In records published on the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office website, ICE is shown to have requested more than twice as many detainers at the jail in the first three months of 2025 as compared to the last three months of 2024. Whitfield County said the partnership has helped identify felons, human traffickers and fugitives. 

As of this month, there are 16 Georgia county sheriff’s offices and two state agencies with active 287(g) agreements with ICE and 13 county sheriff’s offices with pending agreements.

Georgia’s House Bill 1105, passed in 2024, now requires local law enforcement statewide to cooperate with ICE. 

• RELATED: Rules of collaboration are emerging between ICE and Georgia's keepers of the peace: county sheriffs

Dalton has a large immigrant population, including many Latinos who call the small city home. Jose Morales, who moved here as a child with his family, said while Arias-Cristobal’s story has gone viral, hers is one of many. 

“I know individuals that were picked up this weekend, that are at detention centers that left 4-year-olds behind,” he said. “You might not see a lot Latinos out here because they're scared.”

Morales said his feelings about his community have shifted from feeling welcomed to feeling slightly betrayed. 

A mistaken arrest 

Dash cam footage provided by the Dalton Police Department from the day of her arrest shows Arias-Cristobal pulled off the road in a black Dodge pickup truck. She tells the officer that it’s a family friend's car, and that she was heading to return it, and that she has an international driver's permit from Mexico.

The officer collects her information and runs the license plate, exchanging messages with an operator about contacting the car's owner. Ultimately, he informs Arias-Cristobal that she’s being arrested for driving without a valid U.S. license. 

“I cannot go to jail, I have my finals next weekend,” she tells him. “My family really depends on this.” 

Arias-Cristobal tells the officer her mom cannot afford to pay bail, and that she has two siblings at home. In a conversation over the phone recorded during the arrest, Arias-Cristobal tells her to get the money she has hidden under some books in her bedroom. 

Caption

Daita Cristobal, mother of Ximena Arias-Cristobal, is seen during a protest against her daughter's detention held in Dalton on May 14, 2025.

Credit: Sofi Gratas/GPB News

Daita Cristobal, Ximena’s mom, stood among the protestors on Wednesday. In conversations with Ximena since she was placed in detention, Cristobal said her daughter is hopeful that she will be released. She said Ximena has a bond hearing set for this upcoming Tuesday. 

“We are going to exhaust every option so that she can stay home,” she said in Spanish. 

Cristobal said she’s thankful for the community’s support. 

As she awaits legal proceedings, the Dalton community is rallying around Arias-Cristobal. The support crosses partisan lines. State Rep. Kasey Carpenter, a Republican who represents Dalton for District 4, said he has written a character letter to the judge on Arias-Cristobal’s behalf, in hopes to help her case.

“She was heavily involved in our church, a great student at Dalton High, great student in Dalton State … this is not the poster child for what the majority of Americans voted for, I believe,” he said. Whitfield County voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in 2024. 

Carpenter was the only Republican to vote against House Bill 1105, the measure that requires local law enforcement to work with ICE.

“If we had changed the wording of the law where they actually had to commit a serious crime instead of, you know, taking a right turn on red, then I think we wouldn't be having these conversations,” he said. “But unfortunately it was the hot button of the day, and so we hit it.”

Carpenter said over half of his district is Hispanic and his office receives six to seven calls per week from constituents concerned they will find themselves in a similar situation to Arias-Cristobal.

The protest was organized by the Whitfield County Democratic Committee, who protest a variety of issues weekly outside of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district office. Greene released a statement on Arias-Cristobal. 

“While local Dalton officials dropped her charges, the facts remain: she was driving illegally without a license and has no legal basis to remain in the United States,” she said in the statement, “I’m grateful the Trump Administration is upholding our nation’s immigration laws and keeping families together, it’s the right thing to do.”

The Department of Homeland Security on X said the family, meaning Arias-Cristobal and her father, “will be able to return back to Mexico together.” In the post, the agency emphasizes its efforts to get people to “self-deport” through the U.S. Customs and Border Protections mobile app.

GPB's Grant Blankenship contributed to this report.