For Immediate Release: September 2, 2025
Contact: Fermin Vasquez at [email protected]
ICYMI: “What Happens After ICE Chews You Up and Spits You Out?”
Powerful Feature in The Bulwark Focuses on Post-Detention Life of Georgia College Student & TheDream.US Scholar Ximena Arias Cristobal
Washington, DC – A powerful story by Adrian Carrasquillo in The Bulwark, “What Happens After ICE Chews You Up and Spits You Out?” focuses on the life of Ximena Arias Cristobal following her release from ICE detention. Ximena is the 19-year old Georgia college student and TheDream.US Scholar whose unjust detention generated international attention earlier this year.
As TheDream.US Chief of Staff and Government Affairs Susan Collins wrote in a Deseret News (UT) op-ed following the detention of fellow TheDream.US Scholar Caroline Goncalves:
“Instead of more detentions and deportations, America’s interests and values are better served by delivering education, enforcement protections, and permanent legal status for Dreamers. Caroline and countless others in her shoes should not have to live in fear or with tenuous futures in the only home many have ever known.”
Read about Ximena Arias Cristobal in Adrian Carrasquillo’s powerful story in The Bulwark, “What Happens After ICE Chews You Up and Spits You Out?” and find key excerpts below:
“‘I had no freedom when I was in the detention center,’ she told me. ‘What I wanted to do was run.’
But even though she’s no longer locked away like a felon, that feeling of being boxed in is still with her. She’s starting college classes again—thanks to the $33,000 scholarship TheDream.US gave her—but they will be online because of her inability to travel to college or live anywhere but home.
Gaby Pacheco, the immigrant activist who was a leading voice of the Dreamer movement during the Obama era and serves as the president of TheDream.US, told me that in the hundreds of cases she has worked on, there is tremendous survivor’s guilt. While people like Arias Cristobal experience the trauma of detention, they also feel grief for the people still there. ‘This concern for others drives people to go into depression and guilt, but it brings out determination for people like Ximena speaking out and speaking up with purpose,’ Pacheco said.
There have been other signs of how Arias Cristobal’s time in detention has remained with her. Some have been subtle: As she left the detention center, swarmed by the media, she was chewing gum; she later told Pacheco it was because all she wanted in detention was to brush her teeth.
Others have been profound: A young woman of faith, Arias Cristobal wrote on Instagram of the effect the experience had on her life, that she had surrendered her worry at God’s feet, and found peace in the assurance that God has a purpose for her. The experience, she wrote, had equipped her to be a voice for ‘millions who are enduring injustice,’ and for a nation in ‘desperate need of change.’
‘To still hold this hope and joy in her heart despite all the sadness and trauma that she had gone through, I think that’s how we fight back,’ Pacheco said.”
TheDream.US is the nation’s largest and leading organization supporting Dreamers at the intersection of higher education, workforce development, immigration, and advocacy. We provide scholarships, career support, and access to legal options that help immigrant youth break through systemic barriers, achieve social mobility, and drive change in their communities. Through our powerful Scholar data and strategic partnerships, we work to expand equitable access to college and career success, and advocate so Dreamers can fully contribute to the country they call home. For more information on TheDream.US, visit www.thedream.us
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