Irish woman who’s legally lived in the US for four decades snatched by ICE thugs

Under the Trump regime, ICE has the power to drag away and detain pretty much whoever they like with no regard to due process. We’ve heard multiple nightmare stories of people snatched off the streets, American citizens with birth certificates thrown into cells, and people permanently sent into the nightmare CECOT Salvadoran prison, apparently never to return.

Now we can add one more unfortunate name to this sad list. The Guardian reports that 54-year-old Cliona Ward, a green card holder who’s lived in the United States for four decades, was detained at San Francisco airport on Apr. 21 and is currently imprisoned at an ICE hellhole in Tacoma, Washington.

Their “justification” for this is two-decade-old convictions for drug possession, which her family say she believed had been expunged from her record. Her sister explained Ward had moved to the US as a child, attended the University of California, works for a non-profit, and is the carer for a chronically ill son.

California woman detained by ICE since March—over expunged criminal record.

Cliona Ward is a legal permanent resident living in U.S. since age 12—her past record was expunged—and her green card renewed for 10 more years.

"Please don't let me get lost," she begged her sister.… pic.twitter.com/6soZkUhLhb

— LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 (@LongTimeHistory) April 28, 2025

Now her fate is uncertain, though her family is desperately trying to crowdfund a lawyer to argue her case, saying that her convictions do not warrant this treatment: “She did everything she was supposed to do in order to make reparations,” she wrote. “Cliona is a very private and gentle person, who wants nothing more than to return to her quiet life.”

As with other cases of this type, politicians are in despair that ICE now has the power to hold anyone they like without good reason. California Democrat representative Jimmy Panetta says it’s “unfathomable” that ICE can act against a legal permanent resident who’s a productive member of the community.

Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin told RTÉ on Monday: “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” and Ireland’s department of foreign affairs said it was providing consular assistance to her.

Ward’s ultimate fate will be decided in an immigration hearing on May 7, where a judge will decide whether she should be sent back to the country she left as a child and separated from her sick son. With Trump’s goons now charging judges sympathetic to immigrants’ horror stories with felonies for obstructing justice, expect a chilling effect on any leeway they can grant to individuals.

But, for now, Ward remains locked inside a cell with many other people, just another legal immigrant being subjected to imprisonment and isolation for the crime of believing that a green card grants the legal protections it’s supposed to.