Joceline Penaloza was on her way home from her job in southwest Houston on Aug. 19 when a Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputy pulled her over near Highway 6 and Westheimer Road. The reason, according to her family’s attorney: her car was partly stopped in an intersection.

Joceline is 24. She was brought to the US from Mexico at about age 5 and has lived in Houston for almost 20 years. She finished in the top 10% of her high school class. According to her sister, she has no criminal record and has never received a traffic ticket.

Her sister Cynthia says Joceline was kept at the scene for more than an hour until agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showed up and arrested her. She was booked into a detention center in Conroe, then moved more than 1,000 miles away to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, far from her family.

Her attorney, Kim Bruno, has since won a bond so Joceline can leave detention, after arguing she poses no flight risk and no danger to the community. But the immigration charges against her remain.

“She’s not like a criminal. She’s never even had a traffic ticket,” Cynthia Penaloza told FOX 26 Houston.

A minor traffic stop should never end with a young woman shipped across the country. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez should make clear that deputies will not hold drivers who have no warrant and no criminal record so ICE can pick them up. ICE should also use its discretion to drop the case against Joceline and let her keep building her life in Houston.

Sign the petition to drop the case against Joceline and stop turning Harris County traffic stops into deportations.