The 64-year-old woman, a legal permanent resident of the United States for the past 50 years, has been under immigration and customs enforcement control for three months, according to multiple media reports.
A laboratory engineer at Lewellyn Dixon at the University of Washington was arrested at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and taken to the Northwest Ice Processing Center in Tacoma, according to an Oregon public broadcasting report.
Philippine green card holder Dixon has been in the United States since she was 14 and was taken into custody after returning from a trip to the Philippines in late February.
“It was horrifying. It was terrible, it was busy,” she told loved ones, friends and supporters who welcomed her outside the detention facility after a judge determined she was not eligible for deportation, NBC News reported.
Since Trump took office, several green cardholders, including the father of a Danish citizen with no criminal history, who had been legally in the country for more than a decade, have been wiped out by the regime’s immigrant crackdown.
Danish national Kasper Eriksen, 31, and his family saw it in this undated photo. (Mandi Sanders via GofundMe)
In Dixon’s case, it was probably the 25-year-old conviction of embezzlement that caught the attention of US customs and border security, lawyer Benjamin Osorio told the outlet.
In 2000, the 64-year-old pleaded guilty to stealing $6,460 from the Washington Mutual Bank, where she worked as a vault teller and operational superintendent. She was ordered to spend 30 days in the half house and pay compensation, both of which were completed.
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Dixon’s nie Lani Madriaga told NBC News that the entire ordeal was traumatizing and emotional, especially as the 64-year-old never spoke to his family about his beliefs.
“We don’t think of her differently after we found her beliefs,” she told the outlet. “She looked back on it all and she worked really hard and focused on healthcare about really helping the community.”
The 64-year-old, who is long-established citizenship, did not pursue it as she promised that her father would maintain his Filipino nationality and that he could maintain his wealth within the country.
According to her nie, now that Dixon is out of detention facility, Dixon’s top priority is to get her citizenship and return to work.
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