Woman who assisted in federal abuse investigation arrested at Atlanta airport and deported days later

A white cylindrical tank with black lettering stating Stewart Detention Center.
Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, holds nearly 2,000 immigrants on average on any given day since the beginning of the second Trump administration.

Matthew Pearson / WABE

On Thursday, March 12th, Celia was at Atlanta’s Hartfield Jackson airport. She was feeling proud; she’d spent the previous day attending her stepson’s military graduation ceremony. She was now heading home, and about to board her flight back to San Diego.

Then, she said, her name was called to come to the front desk. 

As she made her way to the gate agents she “turned around and there were like 30 men coming my way.” The men, said Celia, were ICE officers, there to arrest her, with a “deportation notice that they claim to have.”