Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé was arrested by ICE agents and detained for 16 days in “unsanitary” conditions. Back in France, she seeks to be the voice for other detainees.
Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, an 85-year-old Frenchwoman living in Alabama and a supporter of Donald Trump, never expected to end up in an ICE prison. On the morning of April 1st, she was abruptly awakened by US immigration agents while still in her robe, pajamas, and slippers. She was handcuffed and taken to a cell.
“I didn’t really understand what was happening to me (…) And it was very humiliating. I didn’t even have time to comb my hair. I had just woken up,” she recounted in the New York Times last Saturday, a few days after her release on April 16. During her 16-day detention, Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé describes living through hell in the US migrant detention system.
She claimed to have been shackled by the wrists and ankles to other detainees and transported in buses and an airplane “like a sack of potatoes.” Initially imprisoned in an “unsanitary prison” in Alabama, where she resided, she was then transferred to an ICE processing center in Louisiana. Now free, she accuses her two stepsons of triggering her incarceration to access their father’s inheritance, Marie-Thérèse’s husband.
After two weeks of detention, Marie-Thérèse had lost all hope of being released and didn’t think she could survive much longer. “I was waiting to die, in reality,” she whispered, convinced that she would never leave her cell. She does, however, recall the kindness of fellow detainees who helped her with trips to the bathroom and showering.
On the eve of Easter, they sang hymns that moved her to tears. “They were wonderful (…) I found God in that prison thanks to those women,” she praised. While she now condemns the conditions of detention in ICE prisons and wants to be the voice for all detainees, she was once a supporter of Donald Trump’s policy on deporting illegal migrants.
“I didn’t think such things existed (…) I believed that after their arrest, they would be treated properly. I was deeply shocked,” she declared. And she insisted: “They treat them like dogs, not humanely.”
[Context: Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, an elderly Frenchwoman, was unexpectedly arrested by ICE agents in the US and detained for 16 days, facing harsh conditions.]
[Fact Check: The story includes personal anecdotes, allegations, and a shift in political views amidst a dramatic experience.]
