An 85-year-old French widow was arrested in her pajamas, handcuffed, and locked inside a Louisiana

An 85-year-old French widow was arrested in her pajamas, handcuffed, and locked inside a Louisiana immigration detention facility for 16 days. 🇺🇸 NBC News reports that Marie Therese Ross, the widow of a US military veteran, was detained after overstaying her visa following her husband’s death earlier this year. An Alabama judge found that her husband’s sons may have intentionally caused her to miss an immigration appointment, potentially triggering her arrest. Inside detention, she shared a dormitory with 58 women, many of them South American mothers who did not know where their children were. 💔 Ross said she grew up believing the United States was a country where people were treated fairly regardless of where they came from. What she witnessed inside that detention facility shattered that belief. She described guards constantly yelling at detainees and treating them with contempt. At night, she said the only thing she could hear was babies crying. 🕊️ When she left detention, she carried a handmade friendship bracelet woven by another detainee and promised she would speak publicly about what she saw. The women inside these detention centers and the families separated by this system deserve to have their stories heard too.