Paola Clouatre, the wife of Marine Corps veteran Adrian Clouatre, was released on Monday after two months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, with the help of Sen. John Kennedy (R–La.). Cloutare's arrest is symbolic of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, which has mostly targeted people with no criminal record, despite his claim that he's deporting the "worst of the worst."
ICE initially detained Clouatre on May 27. After coming to the United States as a teenager with her mother to seek asylum over a decade ago, the 25-year-old began the green card application process shortly after marrying her husband last year. Clouatre was surprised to discover through the application process that ICE had issued a deportation order against her in 2018, stemming from her estranged mother's failure to appear at an immigration hearing in California.
During a recent green card appointment in New Orleans, Clouatre and her husband explained that she had requested that her case in California be reopened. In a video interview with the Associated Press, Adrian Clouatre said they were asked to wait in the lobby for paperwork after finishing the interview when ICE agents arrived with handcuffs and took Clouatre—a mother of two young children—into custody.
