Donna Hughes-Brown, the Irish woman who has been held in an ICE detention centre since late July, has been hit with a further delay to her deportation hearing until December 18th. It was due to take place on Wednesday. Her husband, Jim Brown, has described the judicial procedures relating to his wife as “nefarious” and hopes to gather a support petition from US senators before that Christmas deportation hearing.
“She has actually not been tried at all,” Mr Brown told The Irish Times on Wednesday night.
“Today was a master hearing to see what she is going to be tried for. And it’s for two cheque misdemeanours from 10 and 13 years ago and both of them together are less than $65 (€56). Which is just stupid. And one thing that’s important: they were both for food. They weren’t for a big-screen TV or something like that. They were actually for food. She wasn’t trying to do something bad. This was for survival at a difficult time in her life. You can’t tell me that someone who had two misdemeanours 10 and 13 years ago is worthy of getting deported and stripped away from her family. That’s not okay.”
The family and supporters of Ms Hughes-Brown, who has lived in the United States for the past 47 years and is a green card holder, had hoped to watch the hearing on video link but learned of the latest deferral on Wednesday afternoon. They had been hopeful that her hearing would lead to an acquittal on Wednesday. This is the second time her case has been deferred since she was arrested after disembarking a flight that landed at O’Hare airport, in Chicago, from Dublin. She and her husband, a US Navy veteran, had been returning from a family holiday in Ireland when she was approached and detained by an immigration officer.
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“She’s holding up,” Mr Brown said.
“She is strong. She’s got Irish blood. She is very, very strong. But it is tough and she is slowly breaking down. She actually was in good spirits today- I actually just spoke with her 20 minutes ago. We get to talk each day for about 15 minutes.”
Her detention was related to those cheque misdemeanours, which had remained on her file. Although Ms Hughes-Brown (58) has lived in the US since childhood after moving there with her family, and is a legal resident, with three American-born children and five grandchildren, she is not a US citizen. She was detained under the Immigration and Nationality Act amended on July 4th as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, stipulating that any foreign-born resident of the US who has committed any violation over the previous two decades can be barred from re-entry into the country. It came into effect on July 24th, by which time the couple was already in Ireland. The Browns live on a horse farm in Troy, Missouri but Ms Hughes-Brown was moved by immigration officials to Campbell County Detention Center in Newport, Kentucky, a six-hour, 640km drive away as well as being in a separate state.
“They are absolutely horrible,” Mr Brown said of the detention centre living conditions his wife has endured since late July.
“There is no doubt. The toilets are filthy. The place is filthy. The medical is inefficient. Everything.”
The family’s legal team will attempt to file a habeas corpus, an order that permits individuals to challenge the legality of their detention. They are also filing for a bond appeal which, if successful, would permit Ms Brown-Hughes to leave the detention centre before her hearing. Mr Brown is due to speak with senator Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois politician and former US Army helicopter pilot who served in the Iraq War, on Thursday.
“She is fantastic,” Mr Brown said of Ms Duckworth.
“She absolutely will go after people that are wrong. What I want to do is get the backing of 20 senators before Donna goes to court next time.”
Mr Brown is hoping to raise awareness of his wife’s predicament during a period when ICE raids and arrests are ratcheting up across US cities. There has already been consternation on social media that a grandmother with a reputation for charitable and civic causes in the family’s locality could be deemed eligible for a deportation scheme that the Republican administration has vowed would target “the worst of the worst”.
“That is just a lie,” her husband said on Wednesday night.
“That is crazy to think they can get by with that. It is nefarious what they are doing.”
The family has been given no indication from officials at the detention centre of the likelihood or otherwise of her case being dismissed.
“No. They are closed. They don’t give a crap about anybody. I have no idea. They just keep running it and running it. Our lawyer had Donna’s paperwork together and they didn’t. They just delay because they are so behind because they have so many people detained that don’t have representation and in many cases haven’t committed a crime. They have arrested so many innocent people that it’s unbelievable. My wife’s misdemeanours for $62 when she was on her own and having problems. These delays are because they didn’t have their stuff together. And it is just wrong.”
