ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said that while the agency does exercise discretion, it has instituted some policies that supersede parts of the 2000 memo. Those policy documents are not publicly available.
Whatever the policy, said Rachel Crabtree, a friend of Martinez, "no one in her family is working, and they don't know how much longer they'll be able to live on what they've got."
"Everything has been taken from her -- her driver's license, her library card," Crabtree said, adding that for the first few days after Martinez's arrest, "I really felt like she died."
Friends said they are helping the family raise money and plan to support them at deportation hearings.
"It's different if it's criminal, but [Martinez] was just a young girl working part time at the library," said a friend, Viviana Maltby.
Tyler, the retired librarian, said that with Martinez's arrest, the county's public library system has been deprived of one of its few bilingual workers.
"This is such a loss," Tyler said. "It's not just her family and friends that are harmed. It's all of us."
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david.zucchino@latimes.com
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Special correspondent Pressley Baird in Graham, N.C., contributed to this report.
