A Dalton police officer has resigned after he pulled over and arrested college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal, who was later held for two weeks in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, officials said.
Officer Leslie O’Neal resigned from his position in the Dalton Police Department, city of Dalton spokesperson Bruce Frazier confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday morning.
On May 5, Arias-Cristobal was pulled over and arrested by O’Neal, who mistakenly believed she had made an illegal turn at a red light, officials said. Afterward, police determined she was living in the U.S. without authorization and turned her in to ICE.
The 19-year-old spent more than two weeks at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin before being granted a $1,500 bond May 22.
Her arrest and detainment made national headlines.
The Dalton State College student came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 4 years old. But she was ineligible to apply for the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects some children of immigrants from deportation if they came into the U.S. without authorization.
Arias-Cristobal’s family had been living in Georgia without legal status since 2010. To be DACA-eligible, Arias-Cristobal would have had to have lived continuously in the U.S. since 2007.
Weeks earlier, Arias-Cristobal’s father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, was also sent to ICE detention in South Georgia. He was arrested for speeding after a traffic stop in Whitfield County and later released on bond.
“I was still trying to come to terms with what happened to my husband, and then all of a sudden, Ximena,” Arias-Cristobal’s mother, Ndahitha Cristobal, previously told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was like a bomb going off for me.”
While the U.S. government continues to pursue Arias-Cristobal’s deportation, officials said she will be able to stay at home with her family.
Dalton is a majority Hispanic town located about 90 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta.
— AJC staff writer Lautaro Grinspan contributed to this story
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