She wouldn’t survive a month, according to her son, alone in American prisons. Marie-Thérèse still managed two weeks. This 86-year-old French woman, placed in detention by the American immigration police on April 1, is back in France.
“She returned to France this morning and it’s a source of satisfaction for us,” announced French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot during a visit to Montpellier. The minister had been informed in early April and said he was confident but “cautious” as he worked behind the scenes for her release.
Handcuffed like a “dangerous criminal”
Marie-Thérèse had been arrested at her American home in the small town of Anniston, Alabama, at the beginning of the month. “She was handcuffed at the feet and hands like a dangerous criminal,” her son explained to Ouest-France.
Her son was able to see her through a consular visit. “She’s holding up. Our mother is a fighter. She’s a force of nature. She’s nicknamed the unsinkable by the other detainees,” her son recounted, despite the octogenarian’s heart and back problems.
Marie-Thérèse had been arrested and detained in a detention center because she did not have a permanent visa. After joining her husband Billy, a former American soldier she met on a NATO base near Saint-Nazaire in the late 1950s, before reuniting with him in 2022, she did not have the green card needed to stay after his death in January.
