A 19-year-old Utah college student arrested by federal immigration agents after a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy shared information about her in a law enforcement group chat has been granted bail, her attorney said Wednesday.
Caroline Dias Goncalves was pulled over for a traffic stop on Interstate 70 near Fruita on June 5 because she was following a tractor-trailer too closely, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said.
The deputy let her go with a warning but shared information about the encounter in an encrypted Signal group chat between local and federal law enforcement that was used for drug enforcement.
Federal agents arrested Dias Goncalves a short time later in Grand Junction and are detaining her at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora. Her family did not know where she was for two days, according to reporting from the Salt Lake Tribune.
Dias Goncalves, who attends the University of Utah, came to the U.S. from Brazil with her family when she was 7 and overstayed a tourist visa. She has a pending asylum application, according to the Tribune.
Colorado law enforcement is barred from cooperating with civil immigration enforcement under state law, and the sheriff’s office said the agency did not know the information would be used for immigration activity.
Sheriff’s officials have refused to say what information the deputy shared about Dias Goncalves, but said the agency is no longer a part of the Signal chat.
Dias Goncalves was granted bail by an immigration judge on Wednesday, advocacy group TheDream.US said in a news release. The organization did not provide details about the terms of her bail or when she will be released, but said she will be released “in the coming days” and asked for privacy for Dias Goncalves and her family.
A spokesperson for TheDream.US could not immediately be reached for comment.
Her arrest and detention should not have happened in the first place, her attorney Jon Hyman from the Denver firm Peak Justice Group said in a statement.
“She has no criminal record, was not shown a warrant, and as the Mesa County Sheriff’s office has since revealed, her arrest was only attributable to improper coordination between local law enforcement and ICE,” he said. “Investigations should continue to ensure that other young immigrants in Colorado do not have to go through the same harrowing experiences.”
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