Marie-Thérèse Ross, an 85-year-old French widow, returned to France after what she described as 16 days in federal immigration custody in Louisiana, an experience she says changed how she views U.S. immigration policy. In an interview with The Associated Press, Ross recounted how she was held after being arrested in Alabama on April 1, and she described the conditions she said she saw inside the facility.
Ross said her arrest unfolded quickly and that she barely understood what was happening. She told AP that five men identifying themselves as immigration officers banged on her door and windows at 8 a.m., handcuffed her, and placed her in a vehicle while she was still wearing her bathrobe, slippers and pajamas.
She said she was transferred two days later to a facility in Basile, Louisiana, and that she was freed later that month. Ross said she is now recovering in a suburb of Nantes in western France with her family, and that she wants to pursue medical follow-up for symptoms she described as consistent with post-traumatic stress while receiving support.
Ross said she was held in a dormitory-style room with 58 other women, mostly mothers. She described what she saw as distressing conditions for some detainees, saying that “Some of them didn’t know where their children were,” and adding, “I think it’s terrible for a woman not to know where her children are.”
She said the facility was noisy and that the sound of children crying could be heard at night. Ross told AP: “The prison was clean, the food was OK, but it was the way they spoke to us.” She said, “The guards could not speak without yelling,” and she described the quiet moments as making children’s crying more noticeable: “Everybody was talking loudly so everybody could hear what they were saying, but when silence came, you could hear children crying and even babies crying,” she said. “There’s babies in this jail.”
Ross also described detainees’ brief acts of solidarity. She said that during the night, if her bed cover slipped away, she felt “a small hand putting it back,” and that she did not know who it was but believed she received extra care because she was older. She also said the women called her “Grandma” and that she kept a handmade bracelet a fellow detainee gave her, woven from strips of colored plastic.
Her account came as U.S. officials defended ICE standards. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that Ross overstayed her 90-day visa and that ICE detention facilities are “regularly audited and inspected” to comply with national standards. DHS said all detainees receive “proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment,” and have opportunities to communicate with family members and lawyers, adding that ICE has higher detention standards than most prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.
Ross’s case also drew public attention in France. The AP report said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had publicly called for her release, saying ICE methods are “not in line” with French standards. The two countries’ dispute played out against a backdrop of a court order in Alabama that described how a dispute over the estate of Ross’s late husband, William B. Ross, contributed to the circumstances around her detention.
The AP report said that after Ross’s husband died in January, a dispute emerged over his estate. It said his sons rerouted mail from the Alabama residence, contributing to Ross missing an immigration-related appointment, according to an Alabama judge’s court order, which urged a federal investigation into what happened and accused one son, identified as a former Alabama state trooper now working as a federal employee, of using his position to prompt the detention. The stepson denied involvement in her arrest, and Ross told AP she described warm relations with her husband’s sons before his death, later saying relations “transformed.”
Ross told AP that her experience changed her view of the United States. She said her husband had supported Donald Trump and that the couple watched Fox News together, but she said she was “shocked to learn firsthand how immigrants are treated inside immigration facilities.” Ross said she used to view the U.S. as “a country of freedom,” where people are not arrested based on how they look and detainees are treated fairly and with respect, but she said the women she met did not deserve detention and that “Their only fault was to be South American.”
As she recovers in France, Ross said she continues to think about the women she met in custody. She told AP: “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.”