A Georgia juvenile imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after being unfairly arrested has forgiven the police officer who mistakenly stopped her for a traffic infraction she did not commit.
“I believe he had to take the necessary actions. He understands why he did it, and I don’t hold it against him. “As a Christian, I believe the Bible says forgive those who wrong you, and I forgive him,” Ximena Arias-Cristobal stated during a press conference on Tuesday.
Arias-Cristobal, 19, was arrested on May 5 in Dalton, Georgia, after her dark gray truck was mistaken for a black pickup making an illegal turn. According to Dalton Assistant Police Chief Chris Crossen, the citations were eventually withdrawn after officials learned there had been a mixup.
However, she was still detained by ICE once it was revealed that she was an unauthorized immigrant. She was released on bond last week.
Officer Leslie O’Neal has resigned from the Dalton Police Department, according to the city’s communications director.
Arias-Cristobal stated that immigrants at the Stewart Detention Center, where she was detained, are “treated like we’re the worst criminals ever” and recognized that others have also been treated unfairly.
“I understand that everything I’m going through is unjust, and it’s not just my case; millions of individuals in the United States are going through the same thing. At Stewart, I met a lot of people who are in worse positions than mine, and I believe they deserve justice because they are not criminals,” she stated.
“There’s a lot of very sad cases in there, mine is just a speck of what you see and that’s the sad truth,” she told me.
Despite forgiving the officer for her detention, she stated that he was “very unprofessional with his words” and “unprofessional with how he treated me.”
She stated that the incident had transformed her life.
“It sort of twists your universe. We used to live in fear, but today we live in even greater fear,” she remarked.
“It makes them feel slightly more entitled. With everything going on in the government, people just feel like they can express themselves, and as a result, we feel like we’re more like targets in our community, and we’re afraid to go out, and we don’t feel as safe as we used to,” Arias-Cristobal said.
The Dalton State College student stated that her arrest has placed her life on “pause.”
She has decided to continue her studies in the fall of 2025, but she credits her faith in God and her family for keeping her going.
“I know my parents came here with the goal of providing a better future for me and my sisters, and they succeeded. Unfortunately, we are in the situation we are in right now, but knowing that my parents moved from another country with nothing in their pockets and gave me the life they so desperately desired for themselves keeps me going because they literally crossed a river with me to provide me with the life I have,” she said.
Arias-Cristobal’s lawyers said they are looking into the potential of asking for a U visa, which might provide Arias-Cristobal and her family with legal status as a result of the unjust arrest, according to attorney Dustin Baxter.
