Phoenix, AZ – Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos may have become the first person to be deported due to Trump’s executive order on immigration. On Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 while completing a routine immigration check-in, Garcia de Rayos was taken into custody; she was deported to Mexico the next day.

Guadalupe had met with immigration officials yearly since 2009, when she was released after serving six months in jail (three months in jail and three more months in an Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility). She was initially apprehended in a workplace raid that her lawyers maintain was found to be unconstitutional.

Garcia de Rayos’ supporters quickly rallied around her arrest. On Wednesday evening Puente, a grassroots migrant justice organization based in Phoenix, organized a demonstration at the ICE facility where Garcia was being held. In attendance were her husband and her teenage children. When asked by KNXV whether she had anything to say to President Trump, daughter Jaqueline responded:

“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.“

Later that evening seven people were arrested for attempting to physically block the ICE bus from transporting her to Nogales, Sonora.

Protesters blocking Central Ave., main thoroughfare in Phoenix. Police in helicopter saying, "Get out of the street." pic.twitter.com/qm5BdkUGCU

— Fernanda Santos (@ByFernandaS) February 9, 2017

Protesters also blocked lightrail line. pic.twitter.com/dZ0yFHFvJi

— Fernanda Santos (@ByFernandaS) February 9, 2017

Spontaneous protests also took place across the country in response to other ICE raids in several cities the same night, including a blockade of a highway on-ramp in Los Angeles.

Son and daughter of Guadalupe Garcia stand before ICE bus to prevent her deportation. Both US Citizens. pic.twitter.com/7HGJEVrqzq

— Valeria Fernandez (@valfernandez) February 9, 2017

Garcia de Rayos was deported due to a clause in the executive order, which vows to

“prioritize for removal those … aliens who have been convicted of any criminal offense; have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved; (or) have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.“

This new executive order threatens to immediately deport any undocumented person living in the United States who has any criminal history, whether found guilty or not, as well as those who have engaged in behavior that might have constituted a criminal offense, should they have been charged and given a fair trial.

In addition to her detention in 2009, Garcia de Reyos was charged with felony impersonation, a charge often attached to persons attempting to live in the country without documentation. Her lawyers maintain that the raid in which Garcia de Rayos was arrested was ruled unconstitutional – a basis on which her conviction could be overturned.

Garcia de Rayos is the mother of two teenage children, Angel and Jacqueline, who were both born in the United States. Although the Obama administration was moving forward with Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), a program in which parents of U.S.-born children could apply for a three-year renewable work visa and exemption from deportation, it’s becoming clear that this program will not come to fruition under the Trump Administration.

After being deported to Mexico, Garcia de Rayos was temporarily reunited with her children, who crossed the border to visit her.

Family members spoke to the media about what they have been going through in the aftermath of her eviction:

“It’s just the worst thing, it feels like a dream, but this is reality, and we have to face it… We’re going to support our community and my mother and we’re going to keep on fighting. – Son of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos

DAPA is an accompanying program with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which is fully implemented, but which many fear will be quickly overturned by the new administration.

Since the elections, grassroots organizations in Tucson and Phoenix have been working to further reinforce safety networks among undocumented communities. However, many people are increasingly apprehensive about the possibility of deportation. When asked how she and her son had been doing since the election, one anonymous undocumented Tucson woman said “We’ve been staying inside.”

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