By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 08 May 2025 • 23:56
• 3 minutes read
Cliona Ward, a green card holder, was detained at San Francisco airport on 21 April, before being sent to an immigration facility in Tacoma, Washington. | Photo: Gofundme
Clíona Ward, a 29-year-old from Co Meath, Ireland, had visions of California’s golden coast, ready to crash on her cousins’ couch for a summer jaunt. Instead, she got a 17-day stint in a Minnesota detention centre, courtesy of US immigration officers who nabbed her at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on March 15, 2025.
How about her valid ESTA visa and return ticket? Deemed worthless in the face of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“The system basically ghosted me,” Ward told The Guardian after being freed and shipped back to Ireland. “No one would tell me why I was being held. I had my ESTA (electronic visa) approved. But none of it mattered.”
Barred from calling her mother for days and denied a lawyer, Ward says she was treated like a smuggler caught red-handed. “They kept saying it was protocol,” she said in a tone of utter disappointment, “but no one ever explained what protocol I’d supposedly broken.” After two weeks, officials pinned her with “intent to overstay,” a flimsy charge based on offhand comments during a grilling.
‘I was humiliated and terrified’
Ward landed in a cell with a woman who “had lost her mind,” watching the clock tick in a facility stretched to breaking.
“I was humiliated,” she said. “I was terrified. I did everything right.”
Ward’s ordeal isn’t a one-off. Since Trump took office in January 2025, ICE has detained over 200,000 people, with advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimating 3,000-5,000 were legal visa holders or citizens wrongly swept up, like Ward.
The US-based NGO also said they foresee over 1.2 million people legally in the country being deported under Trump’s revival of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which, ironically, a Trump-appointed federal judge said was “not validly invoked.”
Wrongful deportations are trickier to pin down—dozens are documented, including Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran sent to El Salvador by mistake, and a US citizen child deported to Honduras.
Felt like a criminal for visiting cousins in the US
“Cliona was made to feel like a criminal for visiting her cousins,” Ward’s mother raged. “How is that OK?”
The Trump administration’s immigration blitz has sparked global alarm, with plans to deport migrants to Libya’s “hellish” prisons—where torture, rape, and slavery are rife, per a 2023 UN report.
On May 7, 2025, US District Judge Brian Murphy slammed the brakes on these Libya flights, ruling they violated due process.
“All nine Supreme Court justices, Congress, and basic decency” back him, he wrote, citing Libya’s “life-threatening” conditions. Yet, the administration is eyeing other third countries like Angola and Moldova to offload deportees.
Recently, British graphic artist Rebecca Burke went through a similar ordeal, which prompted her to caution people against travelling to the United States.
Is three times a charm? Not for Trump
The Supreme Court has tried three times in 2025 to curb Trump’s deportation spree. In April, it paused Venezuelan deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, demanding due process.
Later that month, it blocked more removals from Texas’s Bluebonnet Detention Centre. In March, it tackled wrongful deportations like García’s, though Trump’s team often sidestepped orders, claiming “administrative errors” or Pentagon-led flights not covered by injunctions. Despite these rulings, deportations churn on—37,660 in February alone, per ICE, with 238 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison by April. Courts cry foul, but ICE keeps raiding, even targeting schools and hospitals.
Ward’s saga, like those of countless EU nationals caught in the net, exposes a system where paperwork doesn’t guarantee safety. Irish consular officials, alerted late to her detention, could only shrug.
For expats dreaming of US adventures, Ward’s warning stings: a valid visa might not save you from a cell. Pack your bags, but maybe hold off on that American road trip. She’s alone. Recently, British graphic artist Rebecca Burke went through a similar ordeal, which prompted her to caution people against travelling to the United States.
The Trump deportation measure has caused an 11.6 per cent drop in overseas visitors to the US, including a 17.2 per cent drop in people travelling from Western Europe, according to US government data.
