An Irish woman who has lived legally in the US for four decades has been detained by immigration officials for the last week because of a criminal record dating back almost 20 years.
Cliona Ward, 54, was detained at San Francisco airport on 21 April after returning from Ireland to visit her sick father and is being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Tacoma, Washington.
Ward holds a green card but has convictions for drug possession from 2007 and 2008, which she believed had been expunged, her family said.
If she believed the drug charges were expunged and they were not, then she likely filled out the wrong immigration form and was granted residency because she “lied” on a government immigration document.
With a drug charge she very likely would not have been approved for residency. But this also means it’s an oversight by USCIS, because the applicants criminal history should have been reviewed at the time of her application.
Something isn’t adding up here.
There was a story a couple weeks ago about another person getting deported on expunged charges. I’m guessing some agencies still keep records after expungement (I’ve heard they still show up when getting security clearance), and they’re using that data.
My bet is on it was expunged and this is them just using arrest records to justify bullshit. Now they will call her a CRIMINAL and anything they do is fine, as she is a dirty criminal.
The really really scary part is that they can arrest someone now on trumped up charges (like a judge that rules kidnapping is bad) then later “deport” them do to past arrests.