RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A 23-year-old Wake County woman with a valid work permit and no criminal record is now being held in a Georgia immigration detention center after federal immigration agents arrested her at work last month, a move her family said has shattered their lives as they worry she could be deported at any moment.
New data from the TRAC Immigration, a data analysis organization at Syracuse University, shows nearly three in four people detained by the Department of Homeland Security have no criminal record.
“She went to work, just like everyone does, and she had no clue that she would be wound up in a detention center that evening and went to bed in handcuffs,” said her uncle, Gene Smith. “Since then, she has been back and forth to immigration court to seek her release on bond. It has been denied multiple times.”…