86-Year-Old French Woman Held in ICE Detention After Moving to Alabama to Reunite With Wartime Love

ICE Abuse
Apr 16
3 min read

A love story that began at a NATO base in France more than 70 years ago has taken a painful turn — ending not in marriage, but in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana. Marie-Thérèse Helene Ross, an 86-year-old French woman, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on April 1 and remains in custody, her family says, despite serious concerns about her health and age.

Ross traveled to the United States in June 2025 to be with a former American serviceman she had fallen in love with decades earlier, when she worked at a NATO installation in western France in the 1950s. The couple had been forced apart in the 1960s after France withdrew from NATO's integrated military command structure, according to the Guardian. Both went on to marry other people.

The two reconnected on social media in 2010, her family told the French newspaper Ouest-France. After both of their spouses passed away, Ross made the decision to move to Anniston, Alabama, to rekindle the relationship and get married. Her son described the couple as acting like "a couple of teenagers."

But the reunion was short-lived. The man Ross had planned to marry died in January 2026, just months after she arrived. At that point, Ross had not yet secured the legal paperwork needed to remain in the country. Days before a scheduled court hearing involving a dispute with one of her late partner's children, ICE agents detained her.

Family Says She Was Handcuffed, Fears for Her Safety

Ross is currently being held at an immigration detention center in Louisiana. Her family says they were never notified of her arrest — they only learned of her detention after French consular officials visited her.

"They handcuffed her hands and feet like she was a dangerous criminal," her son told Ouest-France. "For us it's urgent to get her out of the detention center and bring her back to France. Given her health, she won't last a month in such conditions of detention."

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Ross's detention in a statement to USA TODAY, referring to her as an "illegal alien from France." The agency said she had entered the country in June 2025 under the Visa Waiver Program, which allowed her to stay for 90 days. "Seven months later, she is still illegally in the United States," the statement read.

When asked about Ross's health and age, DHS said that ICE "maintains longstanding practices to provide comprehensive medical care." The agency also used the opportunity to warn undocumented immigrants to "self-deport" or risk being "arrested and deported without a chance to return."

Ross's family did not respond to media requests for comment, but her son spoke extensively to Ouest-France about their efforts to free her.

"Our mother's a fighter – a force of nature," her son told the outlet, adding that they are racing to get her out of ICE detention. "The others being held call her unsinkable."

The case has drawn attention amid broader scrutiny of aggressive immigration enforcement actions by the DHS. In a separate incident in early April, ICE agents arrested Annie Ramos, the wife of a U.S. Army sergeant, at a military base in Louisiana. Ramos, a Honduran immigrant who came to the United States as a toddler, was released several days later.