An Irish woman who has lived legally in the US for four decades has been detained by immigration officials for the last week because of a criminal record dating back almost 20 years.
Cliona Ward, 54, was detained at San Francisco airport on 21 April after returning from Ireland to visit her sick father and is being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Tacoma, Washington.
Ward holds a green card but has convictions for drug possession from 2007 and 2008, which she believed had been expunged, her family said.
I have a close friend from Venezuela, who was a warded citizenship on December, so she thinks she’s safe. I’m keeping quiet, because I don’t want to scare her, but Venezuelans, who used to enjoy a special immigration privileges in America because their country was being led by a rogue dictator, has become one of the most demonized groups in America.
The MAGA Nazis don’t respect anything, and having a green card or even citizenship isn’t going to save anyone. They want to deport people who were actually BORN here, they definitely want to kick out every person that was born elsewhere.
My friend, also naturalized and from Venezuela, knows he’s not safe. We’ve talked. It sucks.