Brazilian Student Detained By ICE Details Her Ordeal While In Custody: 'I Won't Forget This'

Caroline Dias Goncalves, a 19-year-old Utah student from Brazil, recently spent two weeks in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody despite being a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

After her detention gained online traction, she is now detailing her experience, which she described made her feel scared, alone and heartbroken.

Dias Goncalves was born in Brazil and raised in Utah since she was 7 years old. She was taken into custody on June 5 when a Colorado sheriff's deputy pulled her over because she was driving too close to a semitruck.

The officer did not give Dias Goncalves a ticket, only letting her go with a warning. But as she exited Interstate 70 in Mesa County, ICE agents stopped, arrested and took her to a detention center in the city of Aurora.

The case raised eyebrows online after users questioned how ICE became aware of the Brazilian students in Colorado, a state with laws restricting coordination between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.

Once in detention, Dias Goncalves detailed her experience to NBC News: "We were given soggy, wet food— even the bread would come wet. We were kept on confusing schedules," she said in her statement. "I was scared and felt alone. I was placed in a system that treated me like I didn't matter."

"The past 15 days have been the hardest of my life," she described. She was released on bond over the weekend.

Interestingly, the Brazilian migrant says she started getting better treatment from officers once they realized she spoke English. "Suddenly, I was treated better than others," she said.

"That broke my heart. Because no one deserves to be treated like that. Not in a country that I've called home since I was 7 years old and is all I've ever known," she added.

Dias Goncalves is now back at home with her family, she says she is trying to move forward and "focus on work, on school and on healing."

"But I won't forget this," she said. "Immigrants like me— we're not asking for anything special. Just a fair chance to adjust our status, to feel safe, and to keep building the lives we've worked so hard for in the country we call home.'

As per the sheriff's deputy who stopped her, he was placed on administrative leave last week pending the outcome of an administrative investigation, NBC News reported. Initial findings of their investigation revealed that the deputy who stopped Dias Goncalves was part of a communication group that included local, state and federal law enforcement partners participating in drug crackdown efforts.

Federal authorities began using that information for immigration enforcement purposes, according to the Mesa County Sheriffs Office. "Unfortunately, it resulted in the later contact between ICE and Miss Dias Goncalves."

This isn't the first time a migrant detainee has detailed the mistreatments experienced by them from ICE. In fact, a recent report from NPR illustrates the overcrowding, lack of food and hygiene, and even sexual harassment migrants see when they are taken into ICE facilities across the country. "SOS," read a human sign from detainees who recently assembled in the patio of a facility.

The Brazilian student's case also mirrors that of Ximena Arias-Cristobal, a 19-year-old Dreamer student from Mexico, who was detained in Georgia after being wrongly pulled over by police in the city of Dalton last month.

"There's no way to go back to how my life was before," Arias-Cristobal told NBC News during a virtual conversation earlier this month after she detailed the psychological trauma she has endured since her detainment and release.