Ventura was turned over to the immigration cops after the police at the Polk County Jail checked on the teenager’s immigration status while booking her for the misdemeanor trespassing charge. She was released after spending more than a week in jail, and now awaits a deportation hearing.

The case has been covered by local newpapers. It has provoked a reaction among many here concerned about the government’s attempt to deport Ventura over a misdemeanor charge, and the increasing role of local cops in doing the job of the immigration police.

“I am really nervous,” said the teenager in a May 1 interview from jail. “I want to go home. I feel sad because I want to keep going with my school. I don’t understand how they could do this to a student. I have my family and my friends here and everything. If they send me back, it will change my life.”

“The girl just turned 18, and she is going to be dropped off at a border town. She is terrified,” Jesse Villalobos, from the National Conference for Community and Justice, told the Des Moines Register May 3.

According to the Register, this was not the first time local police have turned a Des Moines student over to the Migra. Last year another teenager was deported after being arrested for lying about his age to juvenile court officials. Checking immigration status is standard practice at the Polk County Jail, reported the daily.

As part of the stepped-up attacks against immigrant workers, the U.S government has sought to expand the operations of state and local police agencies to include the enforcement of immigration laws, something they are currently prohibited from doing.

Latino families in the Hoover area have filed a series of complaints accusing local cops posted at schools of harrassing immigrant students, carrying out unwarranted searches of their vehicles and lockers, and using racist slurs towards these students.

The Register reported that Latino students at Hoover account for 16 percent of the arrests at that school, even though they only make up 6 percent of the student’s body.

School officials held a conference earlier this year in response to the growing complaints from families and local organizations defending immigrant rights. School superintendent Eric Whitherspoon said that at that time, “We worked with the SRO’s [School Resource Officer], and we really wanted to be sure it was clear that whether a student is in the country with proper papers or not, our role is not to be questioning that—our role is to make sure they are in school and getting a good education.”

Despite the complaints from parents, the school district announced that it will keep the cops on the school grounds through the end of the school year, and that it will share the cost with the police department.

Polk County juvenile court spokesperson Ed Nahas defended the police actions, saying that “whether this person is held beyond the point of the arrest and eventually deported” is beyond police department control.

Immigration officials have said that Ventura could request that the immigration judge grant her a “voluntary departure” in order to avoid getting deported. If she does get deported she could face felony charges for returning to the United States.  
 
 
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