Irish woman detained by US ICE after returning from visit to Ireland to appear in court

Sarah Slater

An Irish woman detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month after returning from a visit to Ireland to see her ill father is due in court on Wednesday.

Cliona Ward, 54, a green-card holder, who has been living legally there for around 30 years, first ran into legal trouble last month after arriving back in the US from a trip to Ireland to visit her father in Youghal, Co Cork, who is living with dementia.

Ms Ward was detained and questioned by customs at the San Francisco airport over her past criminal record, which stretched between 2003 to 2008 and included some charges pertaining to the possession of drugs.

She and her sister Orla Holladay, who also lives in the US, claimed her convictions were expunged however, prompting customs to temporarily release her to obtain the appropriate documentation to prove that her records had been cleared in California.

When she went to plead her case at San Francisco airport Customs in late April and present proof of her expungement, she was detained once more and told to argue her case in front of an immigration judge.

A GoFundme page has been set up by her sister, Orla to cover legal costs.

Ms Ward, a mother of one son, is due in court in Seattle at 8.30 am local time (Irish time 4.30 pm) and in an update on the fundraising page, Cliona’s Hope: A Mother’s Fight for Freedom, Ms Hollady said that the charity group her sister works with are organising protests for her “preliminary court hearing”.

Ms Ward, a Dublin native, is also a caregiver for her son Malachi who is an “American citizen, and chronically ill.

Ms Holladay revealed that her sister has now been moved into a different section of the detention centre.

“I just spoke with Cliona, and she is so elevated and empowered by the response that you and the community at large have expressed. She has been moved from what she called a ‘holding cell’ to an actual unit in the detention center called a ‘pod’.

“She is building community and with the women she is in there with and wants to help all of them. I am working with SEIU (union), which Cliona is a member of and pays dues to, on her behalf, they are organising protests for May 7th - her preliminary court hearing.”

She said that her sister has “urged” her “to tell you that the service people in the facility are being really nice to her; the people who serve the food, who escort her to go get a shower, who make sure she has clean clothes. She shared she had her first shower in many days today and she felt so good.”

Ms Holladay continued: “Service workers are making sure that her spirit, and the spirit for all the other women in her "pod" are not broken. She said that the place is clean. It's strange that access to a shower, clean clothes is a blessing but right now it is.

"What I want you to hear is that you are making a difference and lifting not only Cliona, who has been sharing her commissary money and phone time with other women, is making a difference.”

Last week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed that consular assistance is being provided to the Wards. He added that the Government would be ing the family “to get this issue resolved”.

“Our advice is consistent in of, where people have green cards for example or citizenship rights or so on, there shouldn't be an issue,” he said, adding that the Government will be pursuing the matter “on a bilateral basis” with the American istration.

California Congress Democrat Representative Jimmy Panetta, in a statement added: “It’s unimaginable that a reportedly expunged, 20-year-old incident could be used as justification for deporting a legal permanent resident who is a productive member of our community.

“But this is the cruel and unreasonable state of this istration’s deportation policy”.