happybadger [he/him]
news::: spoiler spoiler An 86-year-old French woman who moved to the US last year after rekindling a 1960s romance is being detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) centre in the state of Louisiana. The son of Marie-Thérèse, from the city of Nantes, sounded the alarm after his mother was arrested in Anniston, Alabama, earlier in April.
"They handcuffed her hands and feet like she was a dangerous criminal," he told French outlet Ouest-France.
His mother had moved to the US after marrying her long-lost love - an American man named Billy whom she had met in the 1960s, when he was a soldier stationed in the Nato base of Saint-Nazaire, and she a secretary. Billy returned to the US in 1966. He and Marie-Thérèse lost touch, got married - each in their own country - and had children.
According to Ouest-France, the two reconnected in 2010 and visited one another with their spouses. By 2022, both were widowed and started a relationship. Billy was a "charming, adorable man", Marie-Thérèse's son said, and the couple were in love "like teenagers". They married last year and Marie-Thérèse relocated to Alabama, applying for a green card that would grant her the right to remain in the US.
But Billy died suddenly in January, and his son and Marie-Thérèse reportedly entered a dispute over his inheritance. According to Ouest-France, Billy's son "threatened her, intimidated her, and even went so far as to cut off her water, internet, and electricity," her son said.
Marie-Thérèse hired a lawyer, but was arrested by ICE the day before a scheduled hearing. Neighbours alerted her children.
There is no proof that it was a report by Billy's son that landed his stepmother in an ICE detention centre. The French foreign ministry is involved and Marie-Thérèse had received a consular visit, her son told French media. He added that his mother was a "fighter" and "holding up well" but that she had 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 said. Since the start of Donald Trump's second term in office, ICE has taken a central role in carrying out his administration's mass deportation initiative. ICE, its budget and its mission have been significantly expanded and plays a key role in removing undocumented immigrants from the US.
Marie-Thérèse's son said his story "was like a bad American film. Every morning I wake up and tell myself none of it is true, that it was just a nightmare." The BBC has reached out to the US Department of Homeland Security for comment. :::
Sorry for the fedcomment, but when will US citizens start hunting ICE agents for sport 24/7
Attention non USians:
Don't come here
Don't marry people from here
And for God's sake don't be stupid enough to move here
This is a dangerous country full of bad people. Yes it's a minority, but a solid 30% would gleefully throw you in a cell or worse. There is a high likelihood you will be harmed.
There's nothing here worth risking a visit. Big wide world out there. Plenty to see elsewhere.
Don't come here.
You couldn’t pay me any amount to visit the US.
Don't be born here either btw
One of the aforementioned 30%
all of this is a direct consequence of the 2010s attitude of "let's respect their viewpoints and not mercilessly mock and ridicule people with asshole nazi mentalities! nooooooooooo don't punch nazis!!"
now we have concentration camps
rule #1 incivility
I bet you were the kind of extremist who thought calling republicans "weird" was acceptable. You saw how much it hurt their feelings and I bet you condoned verbal terrorism against bipartisanship.
😤
🙈
THERE WILL BE NO ROMATIC REUNIONS; THERE WILL BE NO SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE; THERE WILL BE NO TEARFUL DEPARTURES AND EVEN MORE TEARFUL REUNIONS; THERE WILL BE NO LIST OF THINGS YOU DO NOT LIKE ABOUT SOMEONE; THERE WILL BE NO BET MADE ABOUT LOSING A GUY IN TEN DAYS; THERE WILL BE NO GOTH CHICK CASTING A CURSE ON YOU MAKING YOU SOME SORT OF GOOD-LUCK CHARM WHERE IF PEOPLE HAVE SEX WITH YOU THEY IMMEDIATELY MEET THEIR SOULMATE AFTER; THERE WILL BE NO WEDDING SINGERS; HARRY WILL NOT MEET SALLY; THERE WILL BE A NORMAL AMOUNT OF FIRST DATES, WHICH IS 0 BECAUSE THERE WILL BE NO LOVE YOU WILL NOT KISS YOU WILL NOT HUG YOU WILL MOST CERTAINLY NOT MAKE LOVE
FURTHERMORE:
NO HEAVING BOSOMS
NO RIPPED BODICES
NO YEARNING
NO LOINS
NO BARNS OR HAYSTACKS
NO FABIO-LOOKING MOTHERFUCKERS WORKING AS FARMHANDS
NO ENEMIES TO LOVERS
NO INNS THAT ONLY HAVE ONE BED LEFT SO THE PRINCESS AND THE GRUFF KNIGHT BEGRUDGINGLY HAVE TO SHARE A ROOM
DON'T LIKE IT? CAN'T LEAVE, BECAUSE THERE WILL ALSO BE NO EUROTRIP YOU WILL NOT BEFRIEND A CHAOTIC GROUP OF RASCALLY HOOLIGANS. SCOTTY DOES NOT KNOW AND HE WILL NEVER KNOW. SIT DOWN, SHUT UP AND DIE FOR CAPITAL.
THERE WILL BE A NORMAL AMOUNT OF FIRST DATES, WHICH IS 0
:volcel-sicko-yes:
I'm going to make a post of all my comments that should be taglines, but egregiously aren't.
Im so full of hatred for this god forsaken shithole country
There were dozens of people at every step of this process who knew exactly what they were doing, and went ahead with it. Probably relished in it, but at minimum accepted it. I just can't get over how many people willingly participate in pure evil.
But Billy died suddenly in January, and his son and Marie-Thérèse reportedly entered a dispute over his inheritance. According to Ouest-France, Billy's son "threatened her, intimidated her, and even went so far as to cut off her water, internet, and electricity," her son said.
Marie-Thérèse hired a lawyer, but was arrested by ICE the day before a scheduled hearing. Neighbours alerted her children.
The social death imposed on the elderly with nursing homes is already so conditioned into Americans that this was maybe a quarter of my patients in the last one I worked in. I could even tell who was visiting to avoid being disinherited versus who saw their grandparents as subjects with complex medical needs beyond what caregivers can provide. Putting her in a concentration camp is just Aktion T4 playing out in the society that made those people a marginalised social category to solve the housing crisis.
edit:
Marie-Thérèse's son said his story "was like a bad American film. Every morning I wake up and tell myself none of it is true, that it was just a nightmare."
Even that. So much of this Homeland Security apparatus was justified through media like Office Jim Spy Slop. Those bad American films are what Americans digested instead of books.
what institutions like ICE do is empower the millions of evil mini-tyrants like "Billy" to use the cruel violence of the state to control, ruin, and end the lives of any marginalized person in their orbit, for any reason, or no reason at all.
people like "Billy" have absolutely forfeit the right to continue existing. same with the absolute monsters that have empowered him.
Interesting how the only two news stories I've seen about the suffering of individual people taken by ICE have been white people
i have no sympathy for anybody stupid enough to move from an imperial core country to the US in 2026. why would anyone want to break into prison?
I'm kinda' interested in the inheritance aspect here. Like, the kids sucks ass if they're calling ICE and stuff, but I'm curious about the class composition of all of this.
She was in her 80s, and her reason was love
should have tried to break her lover out of prison, not break into this shithole. if she thought about it at all, she thought she was immune to ICE because she was from france and not a primarily non-white country, and she was wrong. they don't have ICE in france
No amount of talking shit about another will ever absolve you of your own inactions.
Go free someone yourself.
Respectfully, this is sociopathic, but sure, do a “to their white surprise” to a pensioner who wanted a year with a long lost love who fuckin died
