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.
Wait… why would they detain her let alone deport? She has legal residency.
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.”“”
I don’t remember reading that rule in the constitution…
There should be a rule that you can’t deport the legal guardian of a US citizen for that matter. All I’m saying is that they have an excuse for deporting them, even if it’s a bad one. I don’t understand the excuse for this case. Is there any?
Just don’t do any crimes.
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Yes.
Yes, that’s the whole idea
They’ve also “deported” (exiled is a better word) actual citizens. Someone on a green card has less protection than that.
They have quotas to fill. Makes sense for them to pick these low-hanging fruits.
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.
There was a story a couple weeks ago about another person getting deported on expunged charges. I’m guessing some agencies still keep records after expungement (I’ve heard they still show up when getting security clearance), and they’re using that data.
My bet is on it was expunged and this is them just using arrest records to justify bullshit. Now they will call her a CRIMINAL and anything they do is fine, as she is a dirty criminal.
The really really scary part is that they can arrest someone now on trumped up charges (like a judge that rules kidnapping is bad) then later “deport” them do to past arrests.
In my experience, regular police or sheriffs’ deputies can still see details of “expunged” court cases in their system.