2,044 events on record Subscribe September 10, 2026
Standing Record home The Standing Record A non-partisan record of US democratic norms —
and the events that erode them.

ICE detained 85-year-old French widow of U.S. Army veteran for two weeks over visa overstay

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Marie-Therese Ross, an 85-year-old French national and widow of a U.S. Army veteran, at her home in Calhoun County, Alabama, on April 1, 2026, over a 90-day visa overstay. She was held roughly two weeks at a federal detention facility in Louisiana before returning to France on April 17, and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said some of ICE's methods in the case were "not in line" with French standards.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Calhoun County, Alabama

Abuses documented

Actors

On April 1, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Marie-Therese Ross, an 85-year-old French national, at her home in Calhoun County, Alabama, after she overstayed a 90-day visa. She was held for roughly two weeks at a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana. Ross is the widow of William Ross, a former U.S. Army captain she married in Alabama in April 2025; he died in January 2026.

Ross was among a wave of spouses of U.S. servicemembers and veterans detained after the administration scrapped leniency policies that had previously shielded military families from this kind of immigration enforcement.

Updates

2026-04-17 — Ross-Mahe released, returned to France [1]

Ross was released after roughly two weeks in ICE custody and returned to France on April 17, 2026. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said some of ICE's methods in handling the case were "not in line" with French standards and referenced unspecified "violence that raised our concerns," without elaborating further.

2026-04-21 — Probate judge urged federal investigation into stepsons' role [2][3]

An Alabama probate judge overseeing the contested estate of Ross's late husband ordered his two sons to surrender keys to the family home and urged a federal investigation into their conduct, after finding evidence one son knew in advance of Ross's arrest and received a text message confirming it, and that the sons had rerouted mail from the residence, causing her to miss an immigration appointment that reportedly triggered ICE's action. The judge directed her ruling be forwarded to the federal court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Why we recorded this

Equal application of immigration law requires enforcement discretion that does not depend on who a person is or what carve-out the government chooses to end. ICE detained an 85-year-old French widow of a U.S. Army veteran for two weeks over a civil visa overstay after the administration scrapped leniency policies that had previously shielded spouses of servicemembers and veterans from this kind of enforcement. Ending that carve-out and then detaining an elderly widow under the harsher standard subjects a population the government once treated as deserving deference to the same coercive detention used for ordinary civil violations. This archive records when a policy shift newly exposes a previously-protected group to enforcement it was designed to avoid.

Sources

  1. 85-year-old widow detained by ICE returns home, France's foreign minister says — NBC News (AP) primary accessed July 18, 2026
  2. Will Dispute Led ICE To Put 85-Year-Old Widow In Immigration Detention — Forbes investigative accessed July 18, 2026
  3. ICE Locked Up Widow, 86, After Stepson's Twisted Inheritance Plot — The Daily Beast investigative accessed July 18, 2026

See also