ICE Tried to Deport a Missouri Grandma Over a $25 Check—And Held Her for 143 Days
A lawful permanent resident who’s lived in America since childhood was locked up for nearly five months over two bounced checks totaling less than $75.
Donna Hughes-Brown, a 59-year-old Missouri grandmother and green-card holder, was pulled off a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare airport last July and told she’d be deported. Her offense? Two misdemeanor bad-check convictions from more than a decade ago—one for just $25. She spent 143 days in ICE detention before a judge finally halted her removal in December.
Hughes-Brown immigrated from Ireland in 1978 and had built a quiet life in rural Missouri with her husband, Jim. She paid restitution and completed probation years ago. But under the administration’s expanded deportation push, even minor crimes involving “moral turpitude”—including passing bad checks—can trigger removal proceedings. Immigration law gives the government wide discretion. In this case, officials used it.
Conditions in detention were grim. Hughes-Brown describes filthy cells, clogged toilets and two stretches in isolation where the only book allowed was the Bible. Her bond requests were denied. Meanwhile, taxpayers footed the bill—at roughly $187 per day, her detention cost about $27,000. All over a pair of low-dollar misdemeanors from the early 2010s.
Her husband, a conservative Christian and 2024 Trump voter, went public with the case after months of silence from his state’s congressional delegation.
At a Capitol Hill event, he was asked why he voted for Trump. He paused before answering: “Because I was an idiot.”
The backlash at home has been fierce. “My family and I have got hell from both sides,” he said. For Hughes-Brown, the lesson is broader: “It was the intent for this to happen to so many people… It doesn’t really matter how you got here, the end result is the same.”
Now back home, she says she won’t risk leaving the country again. “I’m not even getting close to the border,” she said. But she’s not staying quiet. “I’m going to keep on keepin’ on,” Donna said. “Because it is not right. It is not right.”
Source: The Washington Post (free)
Editor: If this is the definition of going after the ‘worst of the worst,’ we need a new dictionary. Five months in detention over small mistakes from 2014? That’s not law and order—that’s bureaucracy with a vengeance and a very long memory.