They lifted me up like a sack of potatoes: this 85-year

Violence Involving ICE in the United States Raises Concerns

• Violence involving ICE, the immigration police under the Trump administration, is on the rise, sparking controversy and outrage.
• An 85-year-old French woman living in Alabama directly faced their methods.
• Now back in France, she shares her harrowing story on TF1.

For sixteen days, Marie-Thérèse Ross lived in American prisons. “I still have some nightmares from time to time, but I will try to start living quietly again, to forget what I have experienced,” she says in the report above. She had been living in Alabama for a year, completely integrated into local life, until that abrupt awakening on April 1st. “It was 8 a.m. and I heard loud knocks on the doors, on the windows,” she recounts. Five ICE agents, the American immigration police, came to arrest her.

“The yellow ones were common criminals, the red ones were dangerous, and the red ones were those who had killed.”

Marie-Thérèse Ross

Despite her age, 85 years old, she was taken in pajamas to a first detention center, handcuffed hands and feet. “I couldn’t get into the truck, they lifted me like a sack of potatoes,” she recalls. She was accused of living for three months without a visa last year until she received her permanent resident card. Marie-Thérèse had just rebuilt her life with William Ross, her childhood sweetheart whom she met in France in 1958. William passed away in January. Three months later, one of Marie-Thérèse’s stepsons reported her to the police, unable to bear her inheriting.

In detention, the Frenchwoman was called by the number of her bed. “‘Unit Bravo Charlie L30, that was me,” she says. In her cell, she lived with about fifty women, all considered illegally present like her. Each prisoner is sorted by color. “I was in orange, there were others in yellow, and others in red. The yellow ones were common criminals, the red ones were dangerous, and the red ones were those who had killed,” she specifies.

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Her ordeal ended on April 17th, thanks in part to the mobilization of her children. Her son, Hervé Goix, testifies to her determination. “She still amazes me in how she manages. It seems like she hasn’t physically changed much, but I think morally it’s difficult,” he admits. As for Marie-Thérèse, she thinks “of those who stayed.” “That’s my goal, to get them out,” she says. Marie-Thérèse now lives in France, but she hopes to return to the United States, to pay her respects at her husband’s grave.