US mum deported to Mexico

A mother of two American-born children has been deported from the US under the President's crackdown on illegal immigrants, despite living there for 20 years.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos

A mother of two American-born children has been deported from the US under Trump's crackdown. (AAP)

An Arizona mother of two US-born children has been deported to Mexico, one of the first to be swept up in the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigrants, her lawyers say.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, was taken to Nogales, Mexico, on Thursday morning by US immigration staff, her lawyer Ray Ybarra-Maldonado told a news conference.

Both of her children and her husband remain in the US.

President Donald Trump's administration has directed immigration officials to end the practice known as "catch and release" and deport all illegal immigrants, even if they have not committed serious crimes or pose any danger.

Her detention sparked a protest on Wednesday outside a Phoenix Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office during which seven demonstrators were arrested.

Garcia de Rayos, who came to the United States at age 14 and was living in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, had been allowed to remain under the Obama administration's policy despite a 2013 arrest by immigration officials, her lawyer said.

ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe confirmed in an email that Garcia de Rayos was deported to Mexico.

Her lawyer and family decried the action.

"What have we come to as a society when we allow our government to rip a mother away from her two children?" Ybarra-Maldonado said at the news conference outside the ICE office.


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2 min read
Published 10 February 2017 7:28pm
Source: AAP


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