JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Before she was arrested following an immigration protest, Daniela Vargas dreamed of becoming a math professor and soccer mom, with three kids in an SUV.
Now the 22-year-old friends describe as all-American girl may be deported without a hearing to Argentina, a country she hasn’t seen since she was 7, when her parents fled a collapsing economy and violated a visa waiver program to work in Mississippi.
Her attorneys said they filed a motion Friday with the Department of Homeland Security to allow Vargas, now detained in Louisiana, to remain in the U.S. until they can make her case before a judge.
For now, she’s being processed as a “visa wavier overstay,” which could deny her a hearing and put her on a plane to South America.
“She said she was in a cell with other girls. She hasn’t even taken a shower yet because she’s scared to,” her friend Jordan Sanders said. “She has no clue what’s going on.”