ICE places Irish grandmother in U.S. isolation cell over $25 cheque written ten years ago

An Irish woman has been placed in an isolation cell at a U.S. immigration detention centre and faces deportation over a $25 (€22) cheque she wrote ten years ago.

Donna Hughes-Brown is a legal resident of the U.S. who has lived there for nearly 50 years since moving from Ireland as an 11-year-old. In July, she was arrested on arrival at the airport in Chicago after visiting Ireland for a funeral.

Jim Brown, Donna's husband, said she was cleared by U.S. officials at Dublin Airport. However, an officer waiting in Chicago claimed she had paperwork to do and would be released from customs in two hours. The next day, officers told Jim she had been detained.

Jim was able to communicate with Donna while she was held at an immigration detention centre in Kentucky, where she described the conditions of the detention centre as "deplorable."

On Monday, Donna was moved to an isolation cell and Jim has not heard from her since.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Jim said he suspects Donna may have been moved because officers refused to accommodate her health-related low sodium diet.

"[They] tried to feed her hot dogs and chilli mac...She probably told them after the fifth time they tried to serve her, 'I’m not eating that,'" Jim said.

"So they locked her up. I haven’t heard from her in three days now."

Immigration officers claimed she wrote a "bad" cheque for $25 in 2015. Donna paid back the check and got probation, but Jim said the U.S. government considered it a "crime of moral turpitude" — a term often used in immigration contexts but which has no statutory definition.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website says moral turpitude "refers generally to conduct that shocks the public conscience as being inherently base, vile, or depraved, contrary to the rules of morality and the duties owed" to other people or to society.

"I think it’s nonsense. I think it’s a blanket thing to catch everybody, to fill beds [in detention centers]," Jim said.

Jim said he has sent pleas to the Missouri governor and senators, with no success. He has also spoken with a representative from the regional Irish Consulate, who said "they can’t do anything legally."

Donna has a deportation hearing on September 17, for which Jim sent 40 character witnesses to their lawyer. He said the courts have refused her bond twice and while he "thought she would be in court and out," it has now "turned into a crisis."

Donna was detained over U.S. President Donald Trump's amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, part of his "Big Beautiful Bill" enacted on July 24 while the couple was in Ireland.

The policy stipulates that any foreign-born resident of the U.S. who has been found in violation of any law whatsoever at any stage over the past 20 years is subject to deportation or being barred from entry to the country.

"It is hard to believe that this kind of treatment to anyone should be allowed anywhere," Jim said.

"It’s just not fair that you’re telling me I have to be a bachelor the rest of my life because of some stupid policy...It’s egregious that we have allowed a government to allow this to happen."