Sandra Castañeda was convicted for a murder she didn’t commit and was sentenced to 40 years to life. She thought she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison. 

In 2018, she got hopeful news: California dismissed her sentence and ordered her release. But instead of finding freedom, she was immediately detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being released from prison. 

Even though her crimes were dismissed in California, federal immigration authorities still consider Sandra deportable. In this months-long investigation, KQED’s Tyche Hendricks reports on the thousands of immigrants whose cases have been dismissed at the state level but whose cases are still being pursued by ICE. 

Read the episode transcript

This episode originally aired on KQED's The California Report Magazine on Jan. 27, 2023.

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