An 86-year-old French woman who moved to Alabama to marry the American man she first loved in the 1950s is now being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Louisiana, a case that has drawn outrage in France and renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement. Family members say Marie-Thérèse Hélène Ross was arrested on April 1 and transferred to a detention center after falling out of legal status following her husband's death.
Ross had relocated from Brittany to Anniston, Alabama, last year to marry Billy, a former U.S. serviceman she met near the NATO base at Saint-Nazaire in western France decades ago. According to accounts reported by The Guardian, the two were separated in the 1960s when Billy returned to the United States and France withdrew from NATO's integrated military command.
They later reconnected in 2010 through social media, and after both of their spouses died, Ross moved to the United States and married him in 2025.
That late-in-life love story took a devastating turn in January, when Billy died before Ross had secured a green card. The Department of Homeland Security told The Independent that Ross had entered the United States in June 2025 under the Visa Waiver Program, which allowed her to remain for 90 days, and that she was still in the country seven months later. DHS said ICE arrested her because she was "illegally in the United States," language that sharply contrasts with her family's portrayal of an elderly widow caught in bureaucratic limbo.
Her relatives say the situation became even more chaotic after Billy's death. They explained that Ross became embroiled in a dispute with one of Billy's sons over inheritance and living conditions, with allegations that utilities to her home were cut off. She was due in court over that dispute on April 1, but her family says immigration agents detained her before the hearing could resolve anything.
Now held in a crowded Louisiana detention facility, Ross's family says her health is deteriorating. Her son told Ouest-France, as quoted by The Independent, that "for us it's urgent to get her out of the detention center and bring her back to France," adding, "Given her health, she won't last a month in such conditions of detention." The same report said Ross suffers from heart and back problems and is being held with about 70 other detainees. French consular officials have reportedly visited her.
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