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.
Just wait until they figure out where Kash Patel is “really” from. Bet you the crocodile tears will run like rivers.
No, it’s ok. He’s one of the good ones. /s
C’mon let this establish precedent so I can get ‘deported’ to the home country after 150 years.
Also, why did she get sent across the country from San Fran to the SeaTac area? Is Washington acting like the Louisiana of the West Coast, what the fuck?
Where exactly are you coming up with the idea that San Francisco California and Tacoma Washington are “across the country” from one another?
We are a big country and Florida Keys to Maine is about 1800 miles, Wilmington NC to Barstow CA is about 2500 miles
Seems like up and down should count too sometimes. But we need a better word than across, especially if it can’t be safely driven in a single day by a single driver without stopping to sleep.
(San Fran to SeaTac is about 800 miles)
Um, Seattle and SF are on the same coast…maybe there’s just a bigger concentration camp set up there
Wait… why would they detain her let alone deport? She has legal residency.
They’ve also “deported” (exiled is a better word) actual citizens. Someone on a green card has less protection than that.
If she believed the drug charges were expunged and they were not, then she likely filled out the wrong immigration form and was granted residency because she “lied” on a government immigration document.
With a drug charge she very likely would not have been approved for residency. But this also means it’s an oversight by USCIS, because the applicants criminal history should have been reviewed at the time of her application.
Something isn’t adding up here.
Well it’s simple really—because the fascists decree it to be so.
This makes residency permits completely worthless. Greencard holders other visa holders can all just be randomly detained when traveling.
US Citizens have been getting deported, we’re far past that already.
These were all minors of deported parents no? At least there’s a bad reason for it.
Tbf this was also a bad reason to detain this woman. They’ll expand it to native-born American criminals, and then “”“criminals.”“”
Just don’t do any crimes.
\s
They have quotas to fill. Makes sense for them to pick these low-hanging fruits.
Catholics are not considered white to the white supremacist
The Irish were not considered white until around 1930 or so. When the demographic shifts in the US required we be white in order to stave off the dreaded brown folk. The old bigot who lived next door to me growing up called me a tater tot until her dying day. I remember my grandfather talking about how one day he had bankers basically offering him a loan. Up until that point he was treated like shit at the bank.
Just go to http://www.rsdb.org/search?q=Irish
The old bigot who lived next door to me growing up called me a tater tot
Prick. I heard two young American girls refer to the Irish as potatoes, in Dublin. They thought nobody could hear them then were properly embarrassed when they saw me.
Considering the US is going back to the 1800s, no better time to start treating the Irish like shit again.
“I bet she has tattoos!”
I’d be willing to bet the universal common denominator for anyone who isn’t brown is simply that they’re antifascist.
Gotta say “antifa” (ann-TEE-fuh) so it sounds like a bad thing. Like an exotic gang, like al Qaeda or something. That way, normal people think antifa is the enemy, and in doing so, they support fascism without even knowing it.
Naming and pronunciation are key. They got half of America terrified of a fucking train halfway across the world.
They should have called it antifash or something more catchy. Antifa needs better PR people.
Same reasoning behind using DEI instead of the actual words that acronym represents.
It would be hilarious to see this regime shooting itself in both feet before shooting itself in the head, if this weren’t some route to a full-blown ‘eMerGENcy’ which they can then use to deactivate democracy all together.
But she’s white!? (Sort of /s)
I guess the Irish and Italians aren’t white any more. We’re getting closer to pinning down the time period where America was ‘great’.
As a Jewish person, I think I can see where this is going
I’m worried about anyone who isn’t very white/“only American”
Also anyone who isnt a WASP
Going? We’ve already arrived.
Despite the rise of anti-semitism, I actually think you guys might survive this one. I’m worried about the Italians, who only recently got their white status tentatively approved
Looking at the neo nazi groups rising in popularity makes me think otherwise
I expect proving that you own some of Trump’s memecoin will be the only way to avoid deportation soon. The god emperor can forgive any sin if you kiss the ring
Mark of the BeBest?
More like mark of the hambeast.
I’m going to get 666 tattooed on my hand just to fuck with these people. I’m getting pissed off and it’s gonna get me in trouble.
gonna get me in trouble.
Use your head and make good trouble.
She has two prior felony drug convictions. She thought those were expunged but they weren’t. So when she indicated otherwise on her paperwork, that triggered an arrest. This probably would have happened under the Biden administration too, but it wouldn’t have made the news.
Well the article states explicitly that she traveled frequently between the US and Ireland and never had an issue before. Things have changed dramatically under this administration.
Hold up. From the article:
She was released to obtain documentation about the allegedly expunged convictions and presented them to Ice officials at San Francisco airport on 21 April, after which she was again detained and sent to the facility at Tacoma, said Holladay.
She brought documentation about the expunged convictions to ICE, so presumably she had some kind of evidence they had been expunged. I am pretty sure she wouldn’t have been arrested under the Biden administration, or any other American administration before that. She posed no flight risk, and a judge would have had to review the evidence before an arrest would have been made.
You know, Due Process and all. It still existed six months ago, and the Constitution was still considered binding by a lot of people in government. Very many people. Some say, the best people.
You believe this was the first time she traveled to and from Ireland in he past 40 years?
Lol
It’s possible I know a guy from Ireland who lived in the US illegally for decades. He never went home for fear of not being allowed back in.
She has a green card
I find it funny that you’re being downvoted when both upvoted responses to you contradict each other.
She posed no flight risk
You believe this was the first time she traveled to and from Ireland in he past 40 years?
After getting off a plane… Not a flight risk! Literally history of leaving the country regularly.
Regardless, 40 years here and hasn’t naturalized yet? Odd… But yes if she was to have filled out a form incorrectly or differently than she had before she would be detained until it’s cleared up… and immigration judges aren’t really well know for having oodles of free time at the moment. So I’m not sure that length of time in detention is valid to discuss here without also talking about how we don’t have enough judges for how many cases are currently open.
But the article itself says something pretty incorrect.
“Where people have green cards and citizenship rights there shouldn’t be an issue so we will be pursuing this on a bilateral basis to make sure that those who are legitimately entitled to be in the US are free from any challenges or difficulties of this kind,”
That’s wrong. You can lose green card status under a myriad of cases. One of them is simply by leaving the country for an extended period of time. Which the article also fails to outline how long she was in Ireland for.
I don’t see any statement from any immigration body or other officials and I don’t see any evidence that this is related to her previous convictions in the article… They just bring it up out of nowhere for no apparent rhyme or reason. And since they brought it up… they couldn’t confirm? What kind of reporting is this?
the Guardian could not verify this was the case
Why not? Seems like it would be easy to pull up a simple conviction history and see if it’s there.
But yes, your assertion that this sort of stuff happened under Biden is correct. My naturalized grandfather (Who’s lived in the US for ~40 years and has been naturalized for ~30 years) flew a few times under the Biden administration and was held up by immigration at least once that I recall. Mostly because he still retains his original accent and can be hard to understand (Subject-verb-object structure is kind of optional in his native tongue and he still speaks like that’s the case at times. It can be hard to follow).
Regardless, 40 years here and hasn’t naturalized yet? Odd.
Nothing odd about it. An Irish passport is measurably better than an American one.
Edit: You can live in a different country for the vast majority of your life and still feel like it’s not your home country. My sister has lived in the UK for over forty years and is very much Irish.
Nothing odd about it. An Irish passport is measurably better than an American one.
You don’t give up an Irish one to get an American one.
Source: Am dual citizen with 2 passports.
You don’t have to but I wouldn’t naturalise in her situation either. Under no circumstances would I pledge allegiance to a country that I felt wasn’t mine and if I had a green card I wouldn’t bother.
That’s not to say I might not feel that way about another country in the future but as I said my sister has been living in the UK for over two thirds of her life and would never consider getting a British passport. Even her adult daughter chooses an Irish one.
If you don’t mind me asking why bother with the dual citizenship? And did you feel any weirdness pledging yourself to the second country?
No pledging required. I hold 2 citizenships by birth.
Edit: Weird to live somewhere for nearly half a century and not “feel” that it’s yours… Why not just go back “home”?
She married an Englishman and raised her kids there because Ireland in 1980 was not exactly thriving. She was around 20 when she left so definitely old enough to feel thoroughly Irish for a lifetime. She still has her accent and all.
She does talk about moving back here occasionally.
I dunno. I’m strongly a “home is where you make it” sort of thing. I couldn’t care less where I was specifically born. But to each their own I suppose.
For there to be a flight risk, there would have to be a crime being committed. She’s already done the time for her past conviction, so there’s nothing to flee, and thus no flight risk.
Her leaving the country and coming back is not a crime when she has a valid visa allowing her to do that.
I addressed this… You can lose your green card. If immigration thinks that her green card might not be valid anymore, then it would be a crime to enter the country.
She didn’t have a visa, she had a green card (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/all-visa-categories.html - green card isn’t a visa and isn’t present on the visa list). And depending on the circumstances of her leaving the country she could have absolutely lost the green card, eg if she left the country for 6 months. This article doesn’t provide enough information to actually understand what happened was wrong. Further since she’s just a green card holder, she likely still has her citizenship to Ireland (though admittedly speculation). So no Visas would have occurred at all in this process at all.
I’m telling you this as a person who holds dual citizenship and my ENTIRE family (except for one person) was immigrants who all fully naturalized. I understand the visa/green card process really well because my mother naturalized and I was old enough to rationalize questions on the matter and directly asked her. Similar stories for both of my grandparents though at different ages.
It may very well be that she only left the country for a couple of days, had all the proper documentation, and filled everything out properly. Then we have issues, but we already know that wasn’t the case since she had to go home to collect more of those documents and the article doesn’t tell us anything meaningful further.
And as my anecdote can speak to, even if you’re naturalized/a citizen. If you say the wrong thing that can be grounds to investigate further, regardless of what administration is in office.
Well if you read the article it says she left to visit Ireland earlier this year and returned in March. There’s no way she invalidated her green card by staying out of the country for 6 months. It also states she visited Ireland many times during the last 20 years and never had an issue.
I did read the article… but I will admit that I missed “earlier this year” specifically. But I did notice the dates that came after that.
[…] and after returning to the US was stopped at Seattle airport on 19 March and held for three days.
She was released to obtain documentation about the allegedly expunged convictions and presented them to Ice officials at San Francisco airport on 21 April
She took over a month to get her documents to the officials. I now see it as much more likely that she is detained again specifically because she missed a deadline to return with the documents and they’re detaining her specifically because doing that is considered a flight risk, until the matter is resolved.
A far more likely scenario is that she needed to schedule an appointment with an official to present the documents. She was released from custody on the 21st and presented them exactly a month later.
You’re aware that ‘flight risk’ isn’t a literal term right? Like, it doesn’t mean that there’s a chance they’re going to board a plane and fly away lol
No shit Sherlock.
A person in law enforcement custody who is considered likely to abscond
People who travel regularly are more likely to abscond than someone who doesn’t travel at all… Why do I have to explain something so simple?
Literally history of leaving the country regularly.
I even noted that specifically.
Because that’s a broad generalization that’s based on the assumption that being well-traveled makes you more likely to flee the law. Her continual travel to and from her home country has no bearing on whether or not she poses a flight risk. If that were true, anyone that moves away from home and regularly travels by car to and from their hometown should be held in custody.
their hometown
…
Literally history of leaving the country regularly.
I’m just going to quote this until you read it apparently. Somehow “hometown” = “Country” to you.
Was she leaving the country legally? Yes.
Was she re-entering the country legally? Yes.
Did she ever have a warrant out for her arrest during those times that she left the country? No.
That’s the bottom line. But for the sake of the argument, I never equated hometown and country. I merely used it as a metaphor to show you how travelling to her home country doesn’t qualify her as a flight risk.
So leaving a town to you is equivalent to the travel it takes to leave the country? You don’t see significant differences between the two? Then I can’t communicate with you on that particular point. We will not come to any consensus there. Especially when you say “I never equated hometown and country. I merely used it as a metaphor” I never did… but did. Your two sentences directly contradict.
Did she ever have a warrant out for her arrest during those times that she left the country? No.
How do you know this? She thought her stuff was expunged. Which clearly it wasn’t since apparently they pulled it up. If it’s still in the records somewhere… or she reported it to them inaccurately. That’s inconsistent information and I would expect agents to investigate.
