Last month, 22-year-old Daniela Vargas was asleep at home in Jackson, Mississippi when she woke up to find Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents handcuffing her dad, Daniel Vargas, and agents asking for her immigration status. ICE agents detained the only family she had in Mississippi, her undocumented father and undocumented 26-year-old brother, Alan Vargas. When ICE agents left her home, Vargas locked the doors and hid in the closet. After a few hours, they came back with a warrant and raided her home. She was temporarily handcuffed but was then released.
Photo by Imani Khayyam via JacksonFreePress
On Wednesday, Vargas spoke out about how her family came to the U.S for a better life at a news conference organized by the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance to raise awareness of Trump’s immigration policies and their effects on immigrant families. She talked about doing her best at school and her dream of becoming a university math professor. She refers to herself as a DREAMer, which refers to the Dream Act which would have granted immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to receive legal status.
“Today my father and brother await deportation while I continue to fight this battle as a DREAMer to help contribute to this country which I very much feel is my country,” she said at the news conference.
Shortly after leaving the news conference at City Hall, the car Vargas was riding in was pulled over by ICE and she was handcuffed as an officer reportedly told her “You know what we are here for.” She was taken into custody and then to a detention center in Louisiana. According to the Huffington Post, an ICE official said they didn’t take Vargas into custody along with her dad and brother because she claimed she had DACA status, but later on they verified that she did not. Vargas was taken into custody on Wednesday during a “targeted immigration enforcement action,” according to the ICE official.
Vargas came to the U.S. with her family from Argentina when she was seven years old, qualifying for Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy that allows immigrants who arrived here as children to become eligible for work permits and temporarily stay in the U.S. DACA recipients must reapply every two years. Vargas was granted DACA status but it expired in November. Vargas couldn’t immediately afford the $495 renewal application fee so she didn’t reapply till February.
Now Vargas is facing deportation without a court hearing, according to her lawyer Abby Peterson. ICE told Peterson that they would seek immediate deportation without a court hearing or bond because Vargas entered the country with her family through a visa waiver program in 2001, which allowed them to enter the U.S. without a visa for 90 days. Vargas told The Clarion-Ledger her family was living in poverty in Cordova, Argentina and her father moved to the U.S. for work. Soon after her family flew to the U.S. together and never went back to Argentina while their visitor’s visa expired. According to the Huffington Post, “Individuals who use the visa waiver program have no right to a hearing or to contest their removal unless they are seeking asylum.” Peterson argues that Vargas’ entire case should be considered since she was a child when she entered the U.S. and didn’t waive her right with her overstay — that was her parents’ choice.
Vargas’ lawyers are doing everything they can to get Vargas a court hearing in front of a federal immigration judge instead of an immediate deportation, which could happen as early as today. Her lawyers were preparing special documents with personal statements from people who can vouch for Vargas. They’ll deliver it to the detention center today and hope it will help Vargas’ case.
Vargas’ arrest is pretty alarming, considering she was a DACA recipient and was trying to renew her status again and was apparently followed by ICE from the news conference. Just last week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping set of orders that supports Trump’s plan to increase immigration enforcement. The memos instruct Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE to identify, capture and quickly deport undocumented immigrants. The memos instruct to give those with criminal records the highest priority but make it clear to arrest and deport all undocumented people they encounter. However, Trump has made statements saying he would not prioritize DREAMers for deportation. “They shouldn’t be very worried. I do have a big heart. We’re going to take care of everybody,” Trump told David Muir at ABC News. With huge sweeping immigration enforcement directives from Trump, youth immigrants like Vargas, who have no criminal record, are getting caught in the crosshairs with no protection.
Vargas is at a detention facility in Louisiana. She says she doesn’t understand why “they don’t want me.”
“I strongly feel that I belong here and I strongly feel that I should be given a chance to be here and do something good and work in this economy,” Vargas said in a statement shared by her lawyer.
United We Dream, a youth-led immigration organization, is urging everyone to sign this petition demanding to release Vargas. A rally in support of Vargas is happening now on the south steps of the Mississippi State Capitol Building.
For undocumented immigrants, it may seem hopeless to protect yourself in Trump’s America but it’s incredibly helpful and important to know your rights. It’s not the best defense, of course, we need to fight for better rights for undocumented folks and secure a way easier path for citizenship but it’s helpful to know these things. United We Dream created a handy “Deportation Defense Card” in English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Korean to remind you of those rights. If you witness ICE activity in your community, make sure to report it to their immigration watch hotline to help support their efforts in keeping communities alerted and to prevent detention and deportation. Here’s the number: 1-844-363-1423
Dissent must be silenced immediately. That’s life in Trump’s facist America.
Dissent from people who are in the country illegally? Now she will have a chance to go home and protest against her government.
Daniela Vargas has been living here since she was 5, this government (our government) is her government.
This land is her home.
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You’re the one in a strange bubble if you can’t figure out how a college student might not be able to immediately afford $495.
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She was going to college (which she was paying for herself because she doesn’t qualify for financial aid or government assistance) but she had to take a leave of absence for finacial reasons. I went to the school she was attending and I know how much it costs; it’s not unreasonable that she wouldn’t have 500 extra dollars lying around to pay that fee. Also, how do you know the shirt she’s wearing wasn’t a gift?
Why are you even on this site if you think it’s a joke?
Cause she needs to rub her opinions in our faces, and feel all strong being a petty nasty child.
Nastiness don’t like to keep to itself in my experience.
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I’m surprised my comments are still there…good for you autostraddle.
Petty.
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As a person that was in this country illegally for years I send Daniela and her family all my solidarity.
CSD, why support US law when you can support illegal aliens.
No human being is illegal, there are illegal actions but a person a sentient being cannot be illegal.
US law is need of reform and you know what there is a financial interest in detaining people in privatised prisons, pardon me “detainment centers.”
Laws are not always ethical. Laws are not always right. People are not illegal.
“Visa waiver program participants who overstay can be swiftly deported.
The visa waiver program allows citizens of certain countries to enter the United States for tourism or business and stay for as long as 90 days.
But remaining beyond that time limit can carry serious consequences.
“You don’t get the right to a hearing,” said Bryan Cox, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The Constitution does distinguish in some respects between the rights of citizens and noncitizens: the right not to be discriminatorily denied the vote and the right to run for federal elective
office are expressly restricted to citizens.
All other rights, however, are written without such a limitation. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection guarantees extend to all “persons.” The rights attaching to criminal trials, including the right to a public trial, a trial by jury, the assistance of a lawyer, and the right to confront adverse witnesses, all apply to “the accused.” And both the First Amendment’s protections of political and religious freedoms and the Fourth Amendment’s protection of privacy and liberty apply to “the people.”
You have here a 22 year-old woman that was kicked out of a country twice in her life. And yes, what my country, Argentina, did to her and her family was kick her out. We’re a country where one third of our population lives in poverty, and what some people should try to understand is what would you do to give your family a better life. We can all can play the all-mighty righteous shit about “breaking the law” but honestly nobody has a fucking idea what are they talking about.
And if this shits ends up the way Heil-Cheeto wants, I hope we can give her and her family a second chance at life, at a real life.
PD: sorry for this but the place where her family came from is Córdoba, not Cordova.
The CA Senate Judiciary Committee just had a hearing on due process rights for immigrants if anyone is interested in learning more about this topic: http://sjud.senate.ca.gov/content/2017-2018-informationaloversight-hearings
Everything about this is evil but I am very stuck on $495 to RENEW a visa. And DACA visas have to be renewed every two years.
That’s not that bad. Immigration fees are extremely expensive. It costs $680 to apply for citizenship. $1140 to apply for agrees card
Plus the $85 for biometrics fee…
I mean $1140 for a green card.
She’s an illegal, she and her family broke the law. Since when do criminals have more rights than a citizen? Wake up.
Oh just fuck right off out of here
Pretty sure there is a comment on here that already shows how they have rights. Maybe you should wake up and have some compassion before commenting. If a “criminal” had more rights than citizens, they would not have to constantly fight for them or fight to be treated equally under the law. So fuck off you fucking blow job.