An 86-year-old French woman who moved to the U.S. to reunite with a long-lost love from the 1960s is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. Marie-Thérèse, from Nantes, married her American partner, Billy, in 2025, after the two reconnected following their first meeting in the 1960s, when he was a soldier stationed at the NATO base in Saint-Nazaire. She relocated to Alabama last year and applied for a green card, but had not received it before her husband died suddenly in January. Her arrest earlier this month in Alabama has alarmed her family, who say she was treated “like a dangerous criminal.” Her son is now pushing for her release, citing her age and health issues, including 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 told French outlet Ouest-France.
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