An 86-year-old French woman who moved to the United States to marry her long-lost love decades after they first met is being held at an immigration detention facility, her family has said.
The woman, identified as Marie-Thérèse Helene Ross, was detained byImmigration and Customs Enforcementofficers on April 1 and remains in custody at a detention facility in Louisiana, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
One of her sonstold the French newspaper Ouest-Francethat ICE did not notify the family of his mother’s detainment and that they only found out after French consular officials visited her.
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"They handcuffed her hands and feet like she was a dangerous criminal," her son told the outlet. "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."
In an emailed statement to USA TODAY, DHS described Ross as an "illegal alien from France."
"She last entered the country in June 2025 under the Visa Waiver Program, which permitted her to remain in the country for 90 days," the statement said. "Seven months later, she is still illegally in the United States."
In response to questions about Ross' health, DHS said ICE "maintains longstanding practices to provide comprehensive medical care." The agency also urged undocumented immigrants to "self-deport" or risk being "arrested and deported without a chance to return."
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Her family did not respond to requests for comment.
Couple reunites after more than five decades apart
Ross moved to the United States in 2025 to pursue a romance with a former U.S. serviceman with whom she fell in love in the 1950s when she worked at a NATO base in western France. The pair were forced to separate in the 1960s after France withdrew from NATO’s integrated military command structure,the Guardian reported.
The two went on to marry other people but reconnected on social media in 2010, her family told Ouest-France. After their respective partners died, Ross moved to Anniston, Alabama, to rekindle their relationship and get married.
Ross’ son said they were like "a couple of teenagers."
But after less than a year together in Alabama, the man died in January. Ross had not yet obtained paperwork that would allow her to remain in the country, her family said. Days before a court hearing related to a dispute with one of her late husband’s children, she was detained by immigration agents.
"Our mother’s a fighter – a force of nature," Ross' son told Ouest-France, adding that they are racing to get her out of ICE detention. "The others being held call her unsinkable."
The arrest comes as the DHS faces scrutiny for itsaggressive immigration enforcement, including the arrests of spouses of U.S. veterans and service members. In early April, ICE agents arrested the wife of a U.S. Army sergeant at a base in Louisiana. The woman, Annie Ramos, a Honduran immigrant who entered the U.S. as a toddler, was released days later.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:French woman, 86, in ICE custody after moving to marry long-lost love
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