A Missouri man who said he voted for President Donald Trump criticized the administration’s immigration policy after his wife, an Irish lawful permanent resident, was detained at a Chicago port of entry and placed in removal proceedings over a decade-old bounced check for $25.
Jim Brown said his wife, Donna Hughes-Brown, 58, who moved to the United States when she was 11, was detained in July when she returned to the U.S. from a family funeral in Ireland and has been held for more than 30 days. Court documents reviewed by local media indicate she once wrote a bad check for $25, a matter for which she repaid the money and served probation, but immigration officials have argued the offense involves “moral turpitude.”
Under federal immigration law, lawful permanent residents may be found inadmissible, placed in removal proceedings and subject to mandatory detention if they present at a port of entry with certain criminal convictions. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told HuffPost that a green card is a privilege and that the government has authority to revoke lawful permanent resident status if laws are broken and abused.
Brown, who has spoken publicly to local media and in interviews with outlets including KMOV and The Irish Times, called the detention “crazy” and described it as a policy that should not be tolerated. He said he contacted Republican U.S. senators Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the White House, but had not received a response. Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, replied in a letter saying the matter was federal.
Brown said his wife was recently moved to an isolation cell after refusing to eat meals she found objectionable. “They tried to feed her hot dogs and chilli mac ... She probably told them after the fifth time they tried to serve her: ‘I’m not eating that,’” he told The Irish Times. “So they locked her up. I haven’t heard from her in three days now. It’s stupid.”
Friends and neighbors in the St. Louis-area community launched a GoFundMe to help cover Hughes-Brown’s legal fees. The fundraising page described the couple as active volunteers and community supporters.
Immigration law treats certain convictions, including some involving fraud or moral turpitude, as grounds for inadmissibility or deportation for noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents. Courts have described moral turpitude as conduct that “shocks the public conscience as being inherently base, vile, or depraved,” but application of the term varies by case and offense.
Brown said he supported Trump’s broad stated goal of removing criminal noncitizens but added that “that’s not what he’s doing,” and told Newsweek he now regrets his last presidential vote. Legal advocates and immigration attorneys have for years highlighted how relatively minor or old convictions can have outsized immigration consequences for lawful permanent residents.
Hughes-Brown’s detention and potential deportation touch on broader debates in U.S. politics over how immigration laws are applied, particularly toward long-settled lawful permanent residents with remote or minor criminal histories. Officials from DHS and ICE have declined to comment beyond written statements outlining statutory authority to detain and remove certain noncitizens. The case remains pending in immigration court as the family and their supporters pursue legal avenues to challenge the detention and possible removal.