85-year-old French widow recounts ICE detention in Louisiana

ORVAULT, France (AP) — At night time, silence fell over the Louisiana immigration detention facility the place 85-year-old Marie-Thérèse Ross was held. Then the wailing started.

”Children crying, and even infants,” mentioned Ross, the French widow of a US navy veteran, whose arrest last month as a part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown made worldwide headlines.

Ross spoke to The Associated Press on Monday about her 16 days in federal immigration custody after being arrested on April 1 in Alabama following an alleged visa overstay, and the late-in-life love story that introduced her to the United States. she has been released and returned to France.

The expertise in detention, she mentioned, modified her and her view of politics.

She was held in a dormitory-style room with 58 different girls, largely moms. ”Some of them did not know the place their kids had been,” she mentioned. ”I believe it is horrible for a girl to not know the place her kids are.”

Her arrest in Alabama unfolded so rapidly that she barely understood what was taking place. Five males, who recognized themselves as immigration officers, banged on her door and home windows at 8 am earlier than handcuffing her and putting her in a car, she mentioned. She was nonetheless sporting her bathrobe, slippers and pajamas.

She was transferred two days later to a facility in Basile, Louisiana. Later that month she was freed. She is now recovering in a suburb of Nantes in western France together with her household. The French overseas minister had publicly referred to as for her launch, saying that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement strategies are “not in line” with French requirements.

Ross had entered the US to begin a brand new life with William B. Ross, a retired US soldier she had met many years earlier when he was stationed in France in the Nineteen Fifties and he or she was a secretary at NATO. They married in April 2025.

After he died of pure causes in January, a dispute emerged over his property. An Alabama decide discovered that Ross’ stepson, a US federal worker, allegedly intervened to immediate her placement in immigration custody.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security, Ross had overstayed his 90-day visa on the time of his arrest. The AP on Tuesday sought remark from DHS, which beforehand didn’t reply to requests.

Ross described strict guidelines and fixed shouting from guards and condescending therapy on the detention facility in Louisiana.

“The prison was clean, the food was okay, but it was the way they spoke to us,” she informed the AP. “The guards could not speak without yelling.”

She described the place as noisy. ”Everybody was speaking loudly so everybody may hear what they had been saying, however when silence got here, you might hear kids crying and even infants crying,’ she mentioned. ”There’s infants in this jail.’

Despite the situations, Ross described moments of solidarity amongst detainees. “During the night, if my bed cover slipped away, I felt a small hand putting it back,” she mentioned. “I didn’t know who it was, but they pampered me because I was older than them.”

She mentioned the ladies referred to as her “Grandma.” She stored a home made friendship bracelet given to her by one other detainee, a present she wears immediately.

Family members mentioned Ross continues to be battling reminiscence gaps and emotional misery following his detention. She mentioned she desires to hunt medical follow-up in France to deal with signs per post-traumatic stress and is receiving help.

Ross mentioned she continues to consider the ladies she put in custody, most of them from South America. Many had been moms separated from their kids.

Her expertise modified the best way she sees the United States and its immigration insurance policies, Ross mentioned. Her husband was a Trump supporter they usually used to look at Fox News collectively. But she was shocked to be taught firsthand how immigrants are handled inside immigration services.

She used to view the US as a “country of freedom, where people are not arrested based on how they look, and where those who are detained are treated fairly and with respect.” But the ladies she met didn’t should be detained, she mentioned. “Their only fault was to be South American.”

As she recovers in France, Ross nonetheless thinks about them: “When I left this jail in Louisiana, I told them that if I ever had the chance to speak about them, I would do it, to help them.”