Colotl’s legal problems started in late March when her car was stopped on the Kennesaw State campus.
Born in Mexico but living in the United States since she was 11, she could not produce a driver’s license, so she handed over as identification an expired passport from Mexico.
She was arrested the next day and turned over to immigration officials. She spent more than a month in the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama.
In a statement Wednesday night, Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren said, “Ms. Colotl knew that she was in the United States without authority to be here and voluntarily chose to operate a vehicle without a driver’s license, which is a violation of Georgia law.
She has further complicated her situation with her blatant disregard for Georgia law by giving false information.”
Her troubles began March 29 when she was stopped on the KSU campus and charged with impeding the flow of traffic. She reportedly told the officer she had a Mexican driver’s license but could not find it; she offered him a Mexican passport that expired in August 2007 as identification. While driving without a license is a relatively minor offense, making a false statement is a felony with a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Nancy Bodiford, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, said authorities were tipped off about the false address by a member of the media and that led to the arrest warrant. A reporter went to the residence listed on Colotl’s public booking records and discovered she did not live there.
University System spokesman John Millsaps with the university system said college applications ask about citizenship but there is no process for verifying it if the would-be students says they are a U.S. citizen. The question of immigration status becomes an issue only if a college applicant says he is from another country.
Out-state-students and exchange students pay four times the in-state rate and Colotl was assumed to be a Georgia resident because she graduated from a DeKalb County high school.
Colotl will now be charged out-of-state tuition.
