DALTON, Ga. – A Dalton teen and her father remain in ICE custody after getting arrested during separate traffic stops.

19-year-old Ximena Arias-Cristobal’s attorneys are working to get her a bond hearing. Arias-Cristobal was arrested on Monday for not having a valid license.

“It’s just terrible how she ended up in this situation … wrong turn and she ends up in ICE custody,” said attorney Dustin Baxter, who represents Arias-Cristobal.

Baxter said he is confident the teen will get a bond.

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“She has no criminal history, she has the support of her community, she’s in class,” he said.

Arias-Cristobal’s dad, 43-year-old Arias Tovar, is at the same detention facility after he was taken into custody for speeding and not having a license. Both Arias-Cristobal and Tovar are undocumented, but the 19-year-old has been in the United States since she was four.

“She does face deportation proceedings even if she’s bonded out, so it’s going to be our job to find a way to keep her here based on her circumstances,” Baxter said. “What she has going on in her personal life and whether or not she has fear of returning to Mexico, her home country.”

The family’s case has received a lot of attention. In a social media post on X, Homeland Security wrote that Tovar had a chance to seek a legal way to citizenship but chose not to.

“I hope that people will see this with a little more empathy, if they can relate with Ximena,” he said.

On Friday, many gathered on Buford Hwy. to rally for the release of Arias-Cristobal. The rally lasted a little over an hour, but the dozens who showed up hope the message resonates much longer with the community.

Signs and chants in Brookhaven called for ICE to release the daughter and her dad from custody.

Organizers of Friday’s rally hope that it will lead to Arias-Cristobal and her dad’s freedom and give the community a chance to unite against recent deportation efforts from the Trump administration.

One person said he believes the administration is unwilling to hear from the people.

“That dialogue is a like a dialogue between the sword and the neck,” said Miles Wetherington, one of the rally’s organizers. “What’s important is we need to build working-class power. As working-class people, we recognize the connections that we have with the immigrant community, and we need to show solidarity with them.”

Another participant in the rally, Jessica Salazar, traveled to Friday’s rally, pushing for Ximena’s freedom. She says she went to high school with Ximena in Dalton and understands the pain of this deportation process. Salazar says her mother was deported back to Mexico seven years ago.

“I graduated without her, so it is really hard,” Salaza said. “We shouldn’t live in fear. It shouldn’t be something everyone lives by day by day, in fear. Ximena was really young.

“It’s scary because Ximena did absolutely nothing wrong.”

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Inclement weather affected the baseball series this weekend between No. 23 Alabama and No. 6 Georgia before a pitch was even thrown. Said weather has now forced another schedule change. No baseball will be played on Saturday, with Friday’s suspended game and the finale moving to Sunday.

Due to rain in the Tuscaloosa area, Friday was set to feature a doubleheader instead of just the series opener, a decision announced Friday morning. The second game of the night was not completed, as rain forced a pause in the action with one out in the top of the fifth inning and Alabama leading 6-2.

That suspended game will resume on Sunday morning with a 10 a.m. CT first pitch time. The third game in the series has been shortened to seven innings and is set to be played approximately 30 minutes after the suspended game concludes.

Georgia (40-11, 16-9 SEC) won the first game on Friday by a blowout 19-3 score. That contest only went seven innings due to the SEC mercy rule. If the Crimson Tide (37-13, 13-12 SEC) finishes the suspended game as the winner, Sunday’s second game will be contested for the series.

Alabama has lost four of its past five SEC series. The suspended game from Friday night was tentatively rescheduled for Saturday, but no start time was announced as the forecast for the day was shrouded with rain.

Sunday’s Mother’s Day games will be live streamed on SEC Network+. The series finale, Alabama’s last home game of the regular season, was initially scheduled to air on SEC Network.

ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Friday she won’t challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia in next year’s midterms, delivering relief for some Republicans who worry she’s too divisive to win.

In a lengthy post on the social media platform X, Greene disputed GOP donors and consultants who fear she would turn off the moderate Republicans and independents needed to beat Ossoff. But Greene said she doesn’t want to serve in a Senate that “doesn’t work” and that she said is dominated by lawmakers hostile to grassroots Trump supporters and unwilling to shake up the status quo.

“If I’m going to fight for a team, it will only be a team willing to lay it all on the line to save this country,” she wrote.

Ossoff, a first-term senator, won the seat by a slim margin in a state that has historically been a Republican stronghold but has more recently become a battleground. He is a top target for Republicans looking to expand their narrow Senate majority.

Popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who could be a formidable opponent for Ossoff, opted out of the 2026 race on Monday. His decision leaves a wide-open race for the GOP nomination.

U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, who represents a district on the Georgia coast, became the first major Republican candidate to declare Thursday.

Six other GOP officeholders besides Greene have acknowledged interest in running to The Associated Press. They include two other Republicans in the U.S. House, Mike Collins and Rich McCormick. Also considering the race are Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, state Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper, state Insurance Commissioner John King and state Sen. Greg Dolezal.

“I expect a competitive primary — Senate seats don’t come along that often,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a top national GOP fundraiser and Kemp ally who has backed Trump’s rivals in presidential primaries.

Greene is nationally known and a prolific fundraiser, but she has embraced conspiracy theories and feuded with members of her own party. On Thursday, she noted to reporters that she has more than 11 million social media followers, saying that’s because people know where she stands.

Greene’s appeal would be clear in a GOP primary with many voters fiercely loyal to the president. Her decision not to run came a day after she told reporters she was considering it.

“I’m going to give it some thought, talk to my family. I’m honored to have so much support from the great people of Georgia. And I have options,” she said Thursday.

Greene was first elected to the House in 2020. She initially planned to run in a competitive district in northern Atlanta’s suburbs, but relocated into the much more conservative 14th District in Georgia’s northwest corner.

Greene continued to embrace conspiracies even after 11 House Republicans joined Democrats to remove her committee assignments in February 2021. She embraced people jailed on charges following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol as political prisoners, part of her campaign to reframe the narrative of the attack and cast Democrats, not Republicans, as a party of violence.

She was welcomed back into the mainstream of the Republican conference by Kevin McCarthy, who forged an alliance with her. But Greene kept feuding with Republicans and Democrats alike. The House Freedom Caucus expelled Greene in 2023.

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Cooper repoted from Phoenix.