Federal officials now say they don't believe Jessica Colotl has a felony conviction that would mean the loss of her protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but stand by their decision to revoke her protection under that program.
Colotl, 28, was a Kennesaw State University student when her arrest in 2010 on charges of impeding traffic and driving without a license drew national attention to the issue of unauthorized immigrants at public colleges.
Colotl, who came to this country from Mexico at age 11, twice received permission to remain in the country under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Created by the Obama administration, DACA grants work permits and temporary protection from deportation to immigrants who were illegally brought here as children.
She was in federal court in Atlanta Thursday to fight federal authorities' revocation of her DACA status last month.
At issue, a U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement spokesperson said at the time, was a document Colotl signed in 2011, admitting she gave Cobb County law enforcement officers a false home address.
Colotl says now she didn't give a false address — her family had simply moved. The case was eventually dismissed.
“Ms. Colotl was subsequently allowed to enter a diversionary program by local authorities,” ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said last month. “However, under federal law her guilty plea is considered a felony conviction for immigration purposes.”
But federal officials say now in court filings that incident isn’t the reason they revoked her DACA status.
Even though Colotl meets the criteria for the DACA program, revoking her status is in line with new, more aggressive immigration law enforcement guidelines the Department of Homeland Security released earlier this year, a Department of Justice immigration lawyer said in federal court Thursday. The memo explaining those guidelines states that they do not affect the DACA program.
“There is dissonance between the DACA guidelines and enforcement priorities,” Jeffrey Robins of the Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation said in response to questions from U.S. District Court Judge Mark Cohen.
Cohen pressed Robins to explain exactly why Colotl’s DACA status was revoked — and why immigration officials had not followed their own procedures in revoking it.
“The government can’t just decide ‘we don’t like the color of the shoes she’s wearing today’ ” and remove that protection from deportation, Cohen said.
The government's actions contradict President Donald Trump's earlier promises that young unauthorized immigrants could "rest easy" despite his pledges of tougher enforcement of immigration laws, said lawyer Charles Kuck, who is representing Colotl along with American Civil Liberties Union staff.
Colotl said Thursday she was devastated by losing her DACA status. She can no longer work at her job as a paralegal because she lost her work permit. She can’t drive anywhere because Georgia driver’s licenses are tied to immigration status. And she is at risk of being detained — though Robins said authorities do not currently plan to detain her.
“I went from having a normal life to basically being paralyzed,” she said. “I just want to go back to having a daily life.”
A ruling in the case is expected next week.
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