Long Island community outraged after 'stellar' SUNY college student detained by ICE
SUFFOLK COUNTY, New York (WABC) -- An education disrupted, a wedding postponed, and a community outraged after Suffolk County Community College honors student Sara Lizeth Lopez Garcia was detained by ICE agents and sent to a Louisiana detention facility to await trial and probable deportation.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has arrested an increasing number of migrants with no criminal convictions, according to an ABC News analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
Star student Sara and her mother were taken from their Mastic, New York, home, said fiancé Santiago Ruiz Castilla.The ICE agents claimed they were looking for someone else entirely when they entered the family home -- but they chose to detain the two anyways.
"This just flies in the face of the narrative that we've been told ... that ICE detentions and ICE raids will only be for those who are convicted of a crime," said Dr. Dante Morelli of the Suffolk Community College Faculty Association.
Sara followed steps to legally migrate to the United States and does not have a criminal record. The Colombian national was in the midst of obtaining her permanent residency, a lengthy process.
"She was a 3.9 GPA honors student, absolutely an incredible student, a student leader," Dr. Morelli emphasized. Sara mentored her fellow students and was studying to be an interior designer. She also designed part of a local women's shelter.
Sara and Santiago had plans to marry in August. Now their nuptials are in disarray, and the pair are busy fundraising legal fees instead of wedding planning.
"We spent five years of our life trying to build something, now, what we have -- nothing," Santiago Ruiz Castilla told Eyewitness News, adding that Sara had one semester left in her undergraduate education and had secured her first job.
Ruiz Castilla said Sara committed no crimes, but now feels like a prisoner.
"They treat them like criminals. They scream," he said.
Sara's detention just one day before her university's commencement cast a shadow over the ceremony, her teachers said. She planned to be there to cheer on her graduating friends.
"There's an emptiness there that has hit a lot of her classmates hard, because she was in the peer mentor program," SCCC professor Cynthia Eaton said. "She was very well loved."
"Everyone should be able to understand that this is not right. We are a nation built on immigration that prides itself on freedom, but we are witnessing waves of unfair detentions," Eaton added.
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