French widow, 86, flies home after ICE detention ordeal

A French woman in her eighties who was arrested and placed in a US immigration detention centre has flown home.Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Marie-Thérèse Ross in Alabama on 1 April after she overstayed her 90-day visa, according to the US Department of Homeland Security. The 86-year-old widow was being held at a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana.She had married an Alabama resident, William Ross, in April last year. The former captain in the US army died in January, setting off an inheritance battle between his children and his widow. According to a New York Times report, a probate judge wrote in a ruling last week that she believed that one of his children had used his position as a government employee to have Ross arrested.The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, told reporters on a visit to the southern city of Montpellier on Friday that Ross had “returned to France this morning and we are pleased about that”.One of her sons told the France" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="64477" data-entity-type="organization">Ouest-France newspaper earlier this week that ICE agents had treated his mother like a hardened criminal. “For us it’s urgent to get her out of the detention centre and bring her back to France,” he said. “Given her health, she won’t last a month in such conditions of detention.”He said he, his brother and his sister had heard no news about their mother for a week after she was arrested until French consular officials were allowed to visit her. She had heart and back problems and the family were told she was being held with 70 other detainees.France-presse" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="1517" data-entity-type="organization">Agence France-Presse contributed to this report