A week after she graduated from a Vermont high school, an 18-year-old woman was detained by US Border Patrol officers Saturday in what immigrant activists have called a “violent and unlawful arrest” just miles from the Canadian border.
The woman, Heidi Perez, was accompanied at the time by her stepfather, Jose Ignacio De La Cruz, a leader of the Vermont-based Migrant Justice advocacy group. Both are undocumented Mexican nationals and now face deportation proceedings, according to Ryan Brissette, a spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection.
They were being held in separate Vermont prisons as of Monday morning.
An attorney for De La Cruz and Perez filed emergency motions seeking their release and calling for the court to keep them in Vermont. Chief Judge Christina Reiss of the federal district court in Vermont granted the latter requests Monday, barring the government from removing either from the state for the time being.