A longtime Santa Cruz County resident has finally returned home after being detained by U.S Customs and Border Protection at San Francisco International Airport and then sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Washington state.
Cliona Ward, a 54-year-old green-card holder, was taken into custody on April 21 when returning from Ireland, where she had accompanied her stepmother to reunite with her ailing father, who has dementia. After following CBP instructions to attend what was described as an administrative meeting, Ward was taken into custody, her sister Orla Holladay wrote on a GoFundMe page titled “Cliona’s Hope: A Mother’s Fight for Freedom.”
Ward was later transferred to an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, ahead of a scheduled court date on May 7. But on Wednesday, she was released from immigration detention after a weekslong legal battle and community effort to halt her deportation…