A Pierce County resident who works as a lab technician for the University of Washington and has lived in the United States for decades is detained at the federal immigration detention center in Tacoma.
Lewelyn Dixon, 64 of Edgewood, is a green card holder, an attorney representing her, Benjamin Osorio said Monday. A green card allows her to live and work permanently in the U.S. But after Dixon traveled to the Philippines with family and returned to Washington on Feb. 28, relatives said she was detained at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Osorio said Dixon was detained because of a nonviolent criminal conviction from 2001.
Dixon immigrated to Hawaii from the Philippines at age 14 and moved to Washington in the 1990s, according to family members. She’s now in deportation proceedings, and her next court date is in July. Dixon isn’t eligible for bond to fight her immigration case from out of custody, according to Osorio, and in the meantime, he said Dixon is at risk of losing her job and her pension…