A ‘humble’ Irish-born charity worker with a valid Green Card living in California since the age of 12 is under ICE detention after a trip abroad to visit her dying father.
Cliona Ward’s desperate family are fighting to free the 54-year-old single mother who works for a Christian non-profit and single-handedly cares for her severely ill adult son.
‘She is very fragile emotionally,’ her sister Orla Holloday, 52, told Daily Mail.
After speaking with her terrified sibling, she added: ‘She had to get off the phone quickly but her last words were, “Orla, I can’t stay here – please help me.”
‘It’s gross in there. She can’t even drink the water. This is so messed up. We just miss her so much.
‘She has traveled abroad multiple times over the years and this has never happened before.’
She believes her sister is a victim of President Donald Trump’s tougher enforcement of immigration policies – which have resulted in increasing round-ups across the country of illegal immigrants in recent weeks.
Ward was first detained by customs officers in Seattle on March 19.
She had returned from a seven-day trip to County Cork in the southwest of Ireland after escorting her 86-year-old step-mother, Janet, to visit her ailing husband, Owen Ward, 81, who is dying of dementia.
Cliona Ward (pictured right) with her younger sister Orla Holloday
There she was questioned there regarding drug and theft related convictions, including misdemeanor charges, dating back 20 years.
She explained to officials that the crimes had been expunged from her record. She was subsequently released but told to provide proof in person at a later date.
Her nightmare began when she returned to the Customs and Border Protection office at SFO airport in San Francisco on April 21 for an ‘administrative hearing’ with character letters and documentation showing those past cases had been expunged.
But after waiting for a couple of hours she was arrested and processed by officers and spent three days in a packed to capacity holding pen.
With hindsight, Holloday believes the hearing was just a ruse to have her sister arrested.
Then on April 24 she was transferred to the privately run Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington.
‘It’s gross in there. She can’t even drink the water,’ Orla told Daily Mail. ‘This is so messed up. We just miss her so much’
Ward’s nightmare began when she returned to the Customs and Border Protection office at SFO airport in San Francisco on April 21 for an ‘administrative hearing’
The sisters share a home in the coastal town of Santa Cruz in Northern California where they have lived for decades.
Holladay said her sister was flown from San Francisco to the ICE center in Washington on a commercial plane escorted by customs guards while sitting among regular passengers.
‘She was handcuffed and shackled – escorted through Tacoma airport like a hardened criminal,’ said divorced Holladay, a divorced mother of two grown children.
‘Everybody was staring at her. She hadn’t been able to change her clothes, brush her teeth, her hair in four days and of course she was haggard. It’s awful’
‘My sister is a very humble, sensitive, private person. She is just mortified.
According to her, customs officials told her sister that they were reluctant to take her into custody – but had no choice due to harsher immigration policies under President Donald Trump.
They told her “We don’t want to have to do this, but under the new administrative law these are our orders – this is what we are told to do.”’
Holloday said her sister is detained in a cell with three other women with no daylight, lights permanently on and no clock. ‘She has no idea what time or what’s going on,’ she said.
Ward is allowed letters but not packages and the food is ‘manky,’ said Holloday, a school teacher.
Their seaman father settled in the Golden State 50 years after meeting his second wife in Sacramento and was eventually joined by his two daughters.
He was diagnosed with dementia two years ago and wanted to spend his final days in his country of birth.
Ward was first granted a Green Card when she was 12 years old and moved to California and has lived in Santa Cruz (shown) for decades
Inside the Northwest ICE Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.
‘Cliona and I both brought him back to Ireland at that point because he wanted to die there,’ Holladay said.
That time Ward was detained for 30 minutes by U.S. customs officers when on the return leg of that trip but was let go.
‘There was no reason for there to be any problem this time,’ added Holladay.
Holiday explained her sister struggled with alcohol and drug addiction – including crystal meth – for five years and was homeless for at one point but had turned her life around.
Her criminal cases reportedly relate to drugs, theft and misdemeanor cases from 2003 to 2008 while in Santa Cruz.
‘Cliona’s story is a story of success and of someone who has worked hard to put a very painful past behind her,’ she said.
She had completed various programs and classes to make sure the criminal charges were expunged from her record.
‘She is distraught because she worked so hard to put this behind her. She has a job – she pays her taxes,’ said Holloday.
She suspects her sister’s predicament is partly due to her criminal cases being incorrectly recorded under the name of Cliona McDonald – a name she has never used.
‘That issue was fixed internally with superior court in Santa Cruz but not at the federal level,’ said school teacher Holladay.
Ward was sponsored by her step-mother to become a Green Card recipient at age 12. She recently had the card renewed which is valid until 2033.
Her son Malakai, 33, who was born in the U.S., suffers from a severe case of Crohn’s Disease.
‘He’s very sick. He was on his deathbed a year ago,’ said Holloday.
‘He’s alive today because my sister has been able to take care of him and make sure that he has adequate nutrition and access to medication.’
She has rushed to find alternative care for her nephew while his mother is detained.
Meanwhile, she has received an ‘outpouring of support’ over her sister’s shocking plight.
‘People feel so helpless,’ she said. ‘The amount of fear this administration is generating in people is awful.’
She has set up a GoFundMe site – called A Mother’s Fight for Freedom – to raise $20,000 to pay for an attorney. On Sunday, the sum was up to $14,580.
Ward (center) with son Malakai and his grandmother, Judy Hagar
Staff at the Irish Consulate in San Francisco have been amazing’ and enabled Ward to have visits while she was detained in the city before transfer to Tacoma.
Holladay said she is ‘grateful’ after becoming a U.S. citizen six months ago.
She believes customs officials frown on Green Card holders who don’t go on to become U.S. citizens because they don’t want to be American.
Her sister, she said, didn’t get around to applying for citizenship because ‘she’s terrible with paperwork and thought having the Green Card was good enough.’
She added that other Green Card holders should be aware of the dangers of traveling if they have a criminal past.
Ward is scheduled to be assigned a hearing date on May 7.
Daily Mail has contacted ICE for comment.
