The wailing at the Louisiana immigration detention facility began at night, Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé remembered, back at home in France. “Children crying, and even babies.”
The 85-year-old’s detention last month as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown made international headlines. Now, nearly a month after her release, she was ready to talk about it – and the late-in-life love story that had brought her to the US.
Ross-Mahé crossed the Atlantic last year to be with her 1950s sweetheart, William B Ross. They had met when he was a US soldier in France and she was a secretary at Nato. “After we both became widowed, we decided to spend holidays together,’’ she said. “Then feelings came back, and we decided to marry.’’
They did so in April 2025, and Ross-Mahé moved in with her husband in Anniston, Alabama. But when Ross died in January, a dispute emerged over his estate. His sons redirected his mail from the Alabama residence, leading Ross-Mahé to miss an immigration-related appointment.
Her arrest on 1 April for allegedly overstaying her 90-day visa unfolded so quickly that she barely understood what was happening, she said. Five men, who identified themselves as immigration officers, banged on her door and windows at 8am before handcuffing her and placing her in a vehicle. She was still wearing her bathrobe, slippers and pyjamas.
She was transferred two days later to a facility in Basile, Louisiana, where she was held with 58 other women, mostly mothers. “Some of them didn’t know where their children were,’’ she said. “I think it’s terrible for a woman not to know where her children are.”
Recovering from her ordeal in Nantes with her family, Ross-Mahé’s abiding memories are of strict rules, constant shouting from guards and condescending treatment.
“The prison was clean, the food was OK, but it was the way they spoke to us. The guards could not speak without yelling,” she said. “Everybody was talking loudly, so everybody could hear what they were saying. But when silence came, you could hear children crying and even babies crying.”
She also recalled moments of solidarity, however. “During the night, if my bedcover slipped away, I felt a small hand putting it back,” she said. “I didn’t know who it was, but they pampered me because I was older than them.”
She said the other women called her “Grandma”, and that she still wore a handmade friendship bracelet given to her by another detainee.
Ross-Mahé’s case was taken up by the French government, with the country’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, publicly calling for her release and saying US Immigration and Customs Enforcement methods were “not in line” with French standards.
The probate judge overseeing the family inheritance dispute also called for an investigation, accusing one of Ross’s sons of using his position as a federal employee to prompt his stepmother’s detention.
Ross-Mahé described warm relations with her husband’s sons before he died, but said they “transformed” after his death. The stepson has denied any involvement in her arrest.
The US Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that Ross-Mahé had overstayed her visa and that ICE detention facilities were “regularly audited and inspected” to comply with national standards.
It added: “All detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets [and] medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers. ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.”
Family members said Ross-Mahé was still struggling with memory gaps and emotional distress after her detention. She said she was receiving support and intended to seek treatment to address symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress.
She added that she continued to think about the women she met in custody, most of whom were from South America, and that her experience had changed her and the way she saw the US.
Her husband was a Trump supporter and they used to watch Fox News together, she said, but she was shocked to learn first-hand how immigrants were treated inside immigration facilities.
She described how she used to view the US as a “country of freedom, where people are not arrested based on how they look, and where those who are detained are treated fairly and with respect”. But the women she met did not deserve to be detained, she said. “Their only fault was to be South American.”
