An English-born grandmother who has lived in the United States for nearly five decades is now facing deportation over a bounced cheque from more than 10 years ago worth just $25.
Donna Hughes-Brown, 58, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 29 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after returning from Ireland, where she had attended a family funeral.
Despite having lived in the U.S. on a green card for 47 years, the grandmother-of-five has now spent more than a month in detention, with officials arguing she is no longer eligible to remain in the country due to what they call a ‘crime of moral turpitude.’
Mrs Hughes-Brown, who holds Irish citizenship and is married to a U.S. Navy veteran, first arrived in the U.S. aged 11 with her parents and brother.
She now lives on a nine-acre farm in Troy, Missouri with her husband, Jim Brown, and has been actively involved in community charity work.
According to Brown, his wife was arrested over a check for $25 that bounced more than a decade ago – a matter the family says was settled long ago.
‘You don’t arrest 58-year-old grandmothers. It’s just wrong. She hasn’t committed crimes. You just don’t do that,’ Brown told local news station KMOV.
‘It’s just not fair that you’re telling me I have to be a bachelor the rest of my life because of some stupid policy.’
Donna Hughes-Brown (left), 58, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 29 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after returning from Ireland, where she had attended a family funeral. Pictured with her husband, Jim Brown
U.S. immigration authorities argue that Hughes-Brown’s old check offense qualifies as a crime of moral turpitude, a vaguely defined legal term which, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, refers to conduct that ‘shocks the public conscience as being inherently base, vile or depraved, contrary to the rules of morality’.
But her husband strongly disputes that label and insists his wife is being wrongly targeted.
‘I think it’s a blanket thing to catch everybody, to fill beds. They signed a stupid bill that is torturing innocent people, and that’s the problem,’ he told KMOV, calling the allegations against his wife ‘nonsense’.
Brown, who served 20 years in the U.S. Navy, said he has been left feeling helpless as his wife remains detained in a facility in Campbell County, Kentucky.
He also admitted that he voted for Donald Trump in the last presidential election but now regrets it ‘100 percent’.
‘It’s egregious that we have allowed a government to allow this to happen. I want somebody to have the guts and the fortitude to stand up and say, ‘You know what? This is wrong’.
‘It’s crazy that this is happening. It’s just crazy that this is even allowed in this country. That’s the problem. It shouldn’t even be thought that this should be OK. My wife is not a criminal.’
So far, Brown says his pleas to state leaders have gone unanswered. Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Kehoe’s office reportedly responded with a letter stating the matter is a ‘federal issue’.
Her husband (above) also admitted that he voted for Donald Trump in the last presidential election but now regrets it ‘100 percent’
Meanwhile, supporters have launched a GoFundMe page to help cover Hughes-Brown’s legal defense costs. At the time of writing, the campaign had raised 86 percent of its modest $6,500 goal.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a prior statement that green card holders who attempt to re-enter the U.S. with certain criminal convictions may be found inadmissible and subject to removal.
‘A green card is a privilege, not a right’, the statement reads, ‘and under our nation’s laws, our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused’.
