An 86-year-old French woman who moved to the US last year after rekindling a 1960s romance is being detained at an immigration enforcement centre in Louisiana.
The son of Marie-Thérèse, from the city of Nantes, sounded the alarm after his mother was arrested in Anniston, Alabama, earlier in April.
“They handcuffed her hands and feet like she was a dangerous criminal,” he told French outlet Ouest-France.
The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the BBC that an “illegal alien from France” matching Marie-Thérèse’s name had entered the country in June 2025 and overstayed her 90-day visa.
According to her son, however, Marie-Thérèse was awaiting a green card when she was detained.
Marie-Thérèse’s mother had moved to the US after marrying her long-lost love, an American man named Billy whom she had met in the 1960s, when he was a soldier stationed in the Nato base of Saint-Nazaire, and she a secretary.
Billy returned to the US in 1966. He and Marie-Thérèse lost touch, got married – each in their own country – and had children.
The two reconnected in 2010 and visited one another with their spouses, Ouest-France reported.
By 2022, both were widowed and started a relationship. Billy was a “charming, adorable man”, Marie-Thérèse’s son said, and the couple were in love “like teenagers”.
They married last year and Marie-Thérèse relocated to Alabama, applying for a green card – a long-term visa – that would grant her the right to remain in the US.
But she had not yet received the green card when Billy died suddenly in January, leaving her immigration status unclear.
Shortly after Billy’s death, his son and Marie-Thérèse reportedly entered a dispute over his inheritance.
Billy’s son “threatened her, intimidated her, and even went so far as to cut off her water, internet, and electricity,” her son told Ouest-France.
Marie-Thérèse hired a lawyer, but was arrested by ICE the day before a scheduled hearing. Neighbours alerted her children.
There is no proof that it was a report by Billy’s son that landed his stepmother in an ICE detention centre.
The French foreign ministry is involved and Marie-Thérèse had received a consular visit, her son told French media. He added that his mother was a “fighter” and “holding up well” but that she had heart and back problems.
“Our priority is to get her out of this detention center and repatriate her to France. Given her health, she won’t last a month in such conditions of detention,” he said.
Since the start of Donald Trump’s second term in office, ICE has taken a central role in carrying out his administration’s mass deportation initiative.
Its budget and mission have been significantly expanded and it plays a key role in removing undocumented immigrants from the US.
Marie-Thérèse’s son said his story “was like a bad American film. Every morning I wake up and tell myself none of it is true, that it was just a nightmare”.