3:03 p.m. ET, August 8, 2019
She was detained by ICE yesterday. Here's what she said the raid was like.
From CNN’s Dianne Gallagher
A woman spoke to CNN Thursday from her home in Morton, Mississippi, after being released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Cynthia is exhausted. The single mother hasn’t slept in two days and her 12-year-old daughter is traumatized from seeing her loaded onto that bus. She said so many of the people detained had small children and babies.
Cynthia told CNN she was released to the wrong city almost an hour away overnight. She does not have an ankle bracelet on.
She said she “had a feeling, a feeling something might happen.”
Cynthia went on to describe the moments after the raid.
She said that an agent told the people on the bus “we are going to clean out Mississippi” of people like you.
At the processing area, Cynthia said there were about 50 buses waiting to take people to different places. She said they were divided into groups: people with final deportation orders, criminal records, and then people like her. She said they told her because she was her daughter’s caretaker, she could go home.
She said she will not be returning to work at Koch Foods plant, which was raided by ICE agents Wednesday. Cynthia added that ICE officials kept her identification card.
She said she is not a criminal, and has been in the US more than a dozen years working and raising her family. Now, Cynthia said she is thinking about going back to Guatemala.
She wanted to wait until her daughter was 15, but she is afraid now. But she probably won’t leave because her daughter is a US citizen, is getting an education and she is only 12.
The thought, however, has crossed her mind, she said.