United States. Its appalling: the chilling story of Marie

Marie-Thérèse, 86 years old, from the Nantes region, has just spent 17 days in a detention center in Louisiana, United States, after being abruptly arrested by ICE, the highly controversial American immigration police. Back on French soil since April 17, she speaks out to tell her ordeal and that of her fellow inmates. “I don’t want to talk about myself. I want to be the spokesperson for my fellow inmates. I told them: I will speak about you so that people know what you are going through. My goal is to close these establishments,” she proclaimed to Ouest France and the New York Times.

Arrested as a dangerous criminal

It is an old story that led Marie-Thérèse from Pays de la Loire to Alabama. In the 1950s, she met Billy Ross, an American soldier, at a NATO base near Saint-Nazaire. The two young people lost touch before reuniting decades later. She eventually settled in the United States with him. But after the death of her husband in January 2026, her immigration status became irregular due to the lack of a permanent resident card.

On April 1st, she was then apprehended by ICE agents at her home in Alabama. Without any explanation, she was handcuffed and taken away, simply dressed in a nightgown and a robe, like a dangerous criminal, with handcuffs on her wrists and chains on her ankles.

First, she was placed in a “tiny cell” and then transferred to the Birmingham prison (Alabama), where migrants and common law prisoners are imprisoned. She was forced to undress in front of everyone, put on a “dirty gray-green jumpsuit,” and thrown into a cell with fifteen other people, including a drugged woman and another accused of murdering her husband. “I was terrified,” she recalls.

One after the other

Then, three days later, Marie-Thérèse was transferred to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana, 700 kilometers away. She had to wait all day in a bus parked on the tarmac with other migrants, without water or food, chained to each other at the feet.

In this “fortress” prison, she was placed in a cell with about sixty other inmates. She describes a constant “upheaval” day and night, the screams, the smell of excrement, the six showers without curtains, the guards who “yelled all the time,” and the wake-up calls at 4:45 AM for what looked like a small breakfast. She talks about holding on, especially thanks to “adorable South Americans” with whom she prayed and sang.

“All of this reminds me of the time of Nazism”

Since her return to France, she remains shocked by this traumatic experience. “It’s dreadful. Arrested because of their dark skin! It’s racism,” she laments, referring to the situation of her fellow inmates. “The arbitrary arrests, the chains on the feet, the midnight calls, the attire, orange for us migrants, green for homosexuals, red for criminals, all of this reminds me of the time of Nazism,” she adds.

A parallel to history that she also evokes in relation to her situation. The octogenarian believes she was reported to the police by her stepson, a former police officer. “From the day after Billy’s death, they made my life hell. They wanted to kick me out. I couldn’t mourn my husband,” she recounts.

Since her return to the Nantes region, Marie-Thérèse is trying to slowly recover from this terrible ordeal. One thing she is certain of: she will never live in the United States again, but she hopes to be able to return to mourn at her late husband’s grave.