An 85-year-old French widow who endured a traumatic 16-day detention by U.S. immigration authorities has safely returned to her home country, where her family is now prioritizing her recovery and emotional healing. Marie-Thérèse Ross, who had married a retired American military veteran decades after he was stationed in France, was held by federal immigration officials for overstaying her 90-day visitor visa, a detention that has sparked diplomatic criticism from French officials.
Speaking publicly outside Orvault, the western French town that has long been Ross’s home, her son Hervé Goix told reporters Friday that the family’s sole immediate focus is protecting Ross as she processes the harrowing experience. “To preserve her health and her rest, and for her to be able to rebuild herself,” Goix said, speaking alongside Ross’s three other children. “We are particularly relieved today to see our mother again, to have her back. She has necessarily gone through a difficult ordeal.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed Ross’s repatriation on Friday, issuing a sharp rebuke of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over their handling of the case. Without going into further detail, Barrot said ICE’s treatment of Ross “was not in line” with French standards for detainee care, and “not acceptable to us.”
Court documents trace the origins of the incident back to a bitter family estate dispute following Ross’s husband’s death. The retired soldier, who first met Ross when he was posted to France in the 1960s, married her last June, and she moved to the U.S. to join him. When he died of natural causes in January, a conflict over his estate erupted between Ross and her stepson — a U.S. federal employee. An Alabama judge later found the stepson had intervened to push for Ross’s immigration detention.
According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security records, ICE agents took Ross into custody at her Alabama home on April 1. Detention records show agents arrested the elderly widow while she was wearing only a nightgown, and she was not allowed to bring her phone, passport, or any form of personal identification with her. She was transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana, where she remained for 16 days while French diplomatic officials lobbied for her release, raising repeated concerns about her health and well-being. Goix told the Associated Press that Ross had already begun the application process for a U.S. green card when she was detained.
“the essential thing is that she is truly safe, that she regains her comfort, that she is surrounded by her children and grandchildren,” Goix added of the family’s priorities for Ross in the coming weeks.
Orvault mayor Sébastien Arrouët, who spoke with Ross shortly after her return, told French reporters that the 85-year-old is overjoyed to be home. “she is delighted, she is happy, she is relieved,” Arrouët said. “Put yourselves in her place, in a country she knows a little bit, it all happened to her so suddenly. We don’t realize the psychological violence. She needs to process all this, and the most important thing is that she is back with us.”