May 10, 2026, 1:57 p.m. ETMilena Araya-Davis grew up in Palm Springs, having been brought to the U.S. from Peru at age 4.She earned a master's degree, became a therapist and married a U.S. citizen. All was well, until the day ICE arrested her.Her story shows how the Trump administration's dragnet can reach those with deep roots in their communities. She hopes sharing her experience helps others.Milena Araya-Davis went to her green card interview in San Diego expecting to take the next step toward becoming an American citizen. Instead, she left in handcuffs. Ten days before Christmas, what began as a routine appointment for the Palm Springs High School graduate ended with her spending a weeklong detention at Otay Mesa Detention Center, a private facility operated by CoreCivic and long criticized for its poor conditions, overcrowding and allegations of abuse, including sexual assault complaints. In 2020, it also had the largest COVID-19 outbreak of any U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the country.Araya-Davis, 27, was brought to the United States as a child by her parents and later received temporary protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. She earned a master's degree and became a therapist. She was in the process of applying for a green card through her husband, a U.S. citizen. But as the Trump administration has intensified its crackdown on immigration and pushes for mass deportations to catch "the worst of the worst" undocumented immigrants, cases like Araya-Davis' show the dragnet can also reach people without criminal records — including those who have spent most of their lives in the United States.In the weeks that followed, she began sharing her experience on TikTok, where her story struck a nerve. Her videos drew thousands of responses from people who feared being detained or seeing a loved one taken into custody. Others were already living that fear.Some even expressed disbelief, saying that her account challenged what they had heard about who was being targeted.A future made possible by DACAAraya-Davis, who was born in Peru, grew up in Palm Springs since she was 4."I'm very proud to be Peruvian and where I come from, but when I get asked, I add that I'm also American. I don't remember anything from Peru, like at all. I grew up here. My life is here," she said. "It's a strange feeling to then have the government tell me that I'm not American. I've been here since I was 4. I don't know anywhere else."Her parents still live in the Coachella Valley, where she grew up alongside her younger sister. Araya-Davis attended schools across Palm Springs Unified School District and graduated from Palm Springs High School in 2017. Her legal status wasn't something she fully understood when she was younger, and it wasn't until later in high school that she began to connect the dots. She had always been a strong student and active in extracurriculars. However, during her freshman year, as her classmates began talking about their college ambitions, she realized her future might look different than theirs."All of a sudden, (my studies) just came to a complete stop," she said. "I did not care about school, I did not care about anything."About a year later, when she was about 15, Araya-Davis became a DACA recipient, known as "Dreamers" — an Obama-era program that allows eligible undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children receive temporary protection from deportation.DACA recipients must renew their status every two years, and the program does not provide a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship. It has been under steady attack from Trump, as well as a barrage of lawsuits and state and federal lawmakers who argue it is illegal to allow immigrants to stay in the U.S. without congressional approval.In his first term as president, Trump unsuccessfully tried to shut down DACA entirely, a decision later blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. Since he returned to office, at least 261 DACA recipients were arrested between January to November 2025 and between 86 and 174 were deported, according to reporting by The Texas Tribune, which noted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has provided conflicting data to members of Congress.For those it helped, like Araya-Davis, DACA was a lifeline."(DACA) completely changed the trajectory of my life. (Before), I felt very hopeless with the future," she said. "It wasn't until I got DACA approved that I was like, 'Oh, maybe I can do all this stuff.' And so I quickly got my grades back up."Once college felt within reach, she began to take school more seriously. In 2021, she graduated from California State University, San Marcos with a bachelor's degree in psychology, a degree that set her on a path to support families the way her therapist had once supported hers."At one point, I was seeing a therapist in the valley and she spoke Spanish, which was huge because my parents could communicate with her," Araya-Davis said. "I didn't have to be the translator. I had been so used to translating (for my parents growing up), and that really inspired me to become a person in the community that could help people."At Cal State San Marcos, she met Matthew Davis, 27, a classmate she mostly knew from afar — and who would later become her husband. They would not begin dating until after graduation and he, too, would become a therapist.Araya-Davis went on to earn her master's degree in marriage and family therapy from Alliant International University in 2023. While she was juggling her graduate coursework and clinical hours, her DACA status lapsed."I was not able to renew it… I was in school, and being a graduate student, I didn't have a lot of money, so it just didn't feel like a priority," she said. "Thinking back, of course, I wish I had saved up the money."She later contacted an immigration attorney to learn about her options. Because her DACA status had lapsed more than a year earlier, her renewal would have been treated as an initial application, which the federal government was not approving while a court challenge over DACA's legality continued. Despite the uncertainty around her own legal status, she was building a career helping others navigate uncertainties of their own.As an associate marriage and family therapist, she spends her mornings at a Head Start center in Escondido, a federally funded program that offers child care and preschool education to low-income families, where she guides children ages 3 to 5 to understand and develop healthier ways to regulate their emotions. She also sees teenagers, adults and couples in the afternoons.As one of the few bilingual therapists at her workplace, she sees many Latino and undocumented clients. So she understood their fears about their immigration status even before experiencing her own nightmare.A step closer to a green card, then handcuffsSeveral months after their wedding in April 2025, Araya-Davis and her husband arrived early at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' San Diego Field Office for her green card interview at 8 a.m. Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. Her attorney had warned her that if she were detained, the building she would be taken to would be freezing. Araya-Davis, who runs cold, wore two sweaters to the interview.At first, the process seemed routine. The immigration officer approved their marriage petition, which meant USCIS accepted that their relationship was legitimate and that they had not married just to get a green card. Then the officer began typing more than she was speaking as alerts from Microsoft Teams kept pinging from her computer. When the officer spoke again, she apologized and said other people were waiting to speak with Araya-Davis."She couldn't even make eye contact with me," she said.Moments later, three ICE agents informed her that she was being detained for overstaying the tourist visa she entered the country on as a 4-year-old."I feel like I blacked out," she said.When her lawyer asked to see the warrant, she found it was an administrative ICE warrant, not one signed by a judge. Her attorney also noted it was dated the same day Araya-Davis first received notice of her interview in November, raising questions about whether the interview had been used to facilitate her detention. The agents said they were just following orders.As they handcuffed Araya-Davis, one directed most of his comments to her husband, repeatedly assuring him that they would not hurt her and that they were not bad people."We'll treat your lady with respect," she recalled the agent saying.Araya-Davis handed over her personal belongings to her husband, including her cell phone and jewelry.She was then placed in a van with others detained that morning. No one said much. From inside the van, she overheard officers discussing how many more people they expected to detain that day. Hours later, she was transported about two blocks to the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building and United States Courthouse in downtown San Diego, where an ICE facility in the federal building's basement became the next stop in what would be an excruciatingly long day.She was placed in a holding cell as officers with the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly questioned her about her background and immigration history. Some tried to make small talk by asking about her husband, whether he had ever tried Peruvian food and whether they had ever traveled to Peru. An officer later told Araya-Davis, who does not have children, that he had her daughter's passport. She soon realized it was her own — issued when she was 4, with a photo of her as a child in pigtails."He was like, 'Oh, is this you in the picture? This is how old you were when you came to the United States?'" Araya-Davis recalled. "He was like, 'Oh my gosh, they took you, even though you've been here this long?' And I was just looking at him. I didn't know what to say."Another officer was more blunt, at times referring to the arrests as "kidnapping," she said. "He kept using the word over and over. Like, 'I guess we're just kidnapping people now.'"Though she felt a few officers may have genuinely been trying to comfort her, she felt unsettled by their comments."Even as I try to have a lot of empathy and compassion, it was hard. It was really weird to have those interactions," Araya-Davis said. "I went into being a therapist because I wanted to help people and the community. In going through this process, I realized I am a contributing member of the community. And yet, this is still happening to me."Inside Otay MesaBy the time she arrived at Otay Mesa Detention Center, in southern San Diego County near Tijuana, it was close to midnight. She had not slept in nearly 24 hours. She was shaking, terrified and had not eaten or had anything to drink.Araya-Davis was issued a navy blue jumpsuit, the color assigned to detainees with no criminal record.She had assumed women in different-colored jumpsuits had more serious criminal records. On her last day in detention, she learned that was not always true. Some had been classified differently for minor offenses, including a speeding ticket or a DUI from years earlier.Roughly 60,311 people were being held in ICE detention as of April 4, according to the most recent data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University. Of those detainees, about 70.8% had no criminal convictions, either none at all or only minor offenses like traffic violations.In December 2025, the month Araya-Davis was detained, ICE detained 42,116 people, the highest monthly total that year and the most since May 2019.That first night after her arrest, every bed was taken. Araya-Davis was given a mat and told to find space on the floor, where she slept until a bunk bed opened up days later. Before she could settle in, she needed water.Water was available from a single sink shared roughly by 150 women in her pod. What she did not have was a cup. Those had to be purchased through the commissary, an in-detention store where detainees with funds in their accounts can order basic items like hygiene products and snacks. Orders were placed Sundays and delivered Tuesdays. She had just arrived on Tuesday.Until then, a woman handed her a small plastic cup and told her to wash it first. Araya-Davis used that cup for the rest of her time in detention.Over the next few hours, other women approached her, asked where she had been detained and offered what they could. The women in her pod, who spoke many languages and came from countries around the world, showed her how to turn on the showers and how to get through the first confusing hours inside."They kind of just took me in," she said.At mealtimes, the detainees lined up in the cafeteria and food was passed through a small metal opening just large enough for a tray. When the women peeked underneath, they could see who was serving the food: not officers, but other detainees in different colored jumpsuits. It was one of the only times they saw people outside their own unit. The work helped pay for ramen packets from the commissary or phone calls, and made the days pass by faster. Yet there weren't enough jobs for everyone, so many had nothing to do.What they were served was often hard to eat. The food was mostly bland, heavy on carbs and short on protein and fruit. Breakfast was often oatmeal and mushy potatoes. One meal consisted of green beans, rice mixed with pieces of bologna and three slices of sponge cake. Another time, she was served mashed potatoes that looked like baby food and a blackened meatball that was pink inside.Araya-Davis' commissary order would not arrive before her release, so other women shared their cookies, oatmeal and ramen they ate instead of the detention center's lunch and dinner. Others slathered their meals in ketchup, mayonnaise or Sriracha "just to be able to get it down," she said.Because of a back injury, she also had to report for medication twice a day. The morning pill line came around 4:30 a.m., when staff would yell detainees' names to call them out of bed. Araya-Davis had seen others miss their medication because they did not wake up in time. If she missed hers, she knew she would spend the day in pain. So she started waking up around 3:30 a.m., keeping herself alert enough to hear her name.The scarcity and care inside one podAs Araya-Davis adjusted to life inside Otay Mesa, her husband was home trying to piece together what was happening through brief phone calls they shared. They spoke twice the first day. Each call lasted a minute, and each time, she repeated the same assurances in a guarded tone: That she had water, that she had eaten, that she was OK."It just made it worse,” he recalled. "I'm like, 'Why the heck are you saying the same thing twice?"That night, he kept his phone beside him at full volume, waiting for another call. It finally came around 6 a.m., when Araya-Davis briefly ca