PHOENIX (KNXV) - According to officials late Thursday morning, the family of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos has been told she has been deported.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Protests erupted in Phoenix Wednesday when a Valley woman was ordered to be deported after showing up for a routine immigration check.
Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was arrested in 2009 for impersonation as part of a Maricopa County Sheriff's Office raid. She was charged with a felony, but her attorneys say that raid was later ruled unconstitutional.
Court documents obtained by ABC15 also show Garcia had previously been ordered to self-deport.
Garcia reported for a regular check-in with Immigration Customs Enforcement Wednesday morning but never came out.
According to Garcia's attorney, she is now facing deportation as part of President Trump's executive order focused on removing undocumented immigrants with a history of arrests.
Garcia's husband and teenage children joined protesters outside ICE headquarters, as the family now faces being separated.
"I'd ask him 'why he would want to take her from me?' She hasn't done anything wrong, and I'm not scared of him," said Garcia’s daughter, Jaqueline, of what she would ask President Trump if she could.
Seven people were arrested Wednesday night after protesters blocked an ICE van that was believed to be transporting Garcia. The van moved back into the garage after several hours of people holding onto the tires and blocking the vehicle with their bodies. No injuries were reported.
The names of those arrested during the protests are Walter Staton, 35; Manuel Saldana, 31; Beth King, 57; Angeles Maldonado, 36; Maria Castro, 23; Kenneth Chapman, 41 and Luke Black, 37. They were arrested on charges of obstructing governmental operations and obstructing a public thoroughfare.
Garcia's attorneys say they are trying to buy the Valley mother more time in the U.S. Garcia is among, if not the first, Arizonan to be deported under the President's new executive order.
"It's extremely disappointing to walk in with a beautiful loving and to care human being like Guadalupe and not be able to walk out with her," said Ray Ybarra Maldonado, Garcia's attorney. "She is stronger than I am, when she heard she was going to be taken in, she took a deep breath asked what the next step that would happen and she went into custody."
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released the following statement in regards to Garcia's case:
Ms. Garcia De Rayos is currently being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) based on a removal order issued by the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review which became final in May 2013. Relevant databases indicate Ms. Garcia De Rayos has a prior felony conviction dating from March 2009 for criminal impersonation.
ICE released the following statement on Thursday:
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers removed Ms. Garcia to Mexico Thursday morning shortly before 10 a.m. MST through the DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) coordinated her repatriation closely with Mexican consular representatives.
Ms. Garcia, who has a prior felony conviction in Arizona for criminal impersonation, was the subject of a court-issued removal order that became final in July 2013. Ms. Garcia’s immigration case underwent review at multiple levels of the immigration court system, including the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the judges held she did not have a legal basis to remain in the U.S. ICE will continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts.”
