Latest news with #AdrianClouatre
CBS News
01-08-2025
- CBS News
Wife of Marine veteran, mother of 2 young kids, released from ICE detention after 2 months
Editor's note: Adrian Clouatre spoke about his wife's detention in the video above from June 23, when she was still being held. BATON ROUGE, La. — A wife of a Marine Corps veteran and mother of two was released from ICE custody on Monday after being detained in May during what she says she thought was a routine immigration office visit, she and her husband tell CBS News. "I feel like a mom again, because well, I was, at some points, I was feeling guilty, like I failed my kids, because I was, you know, without them," Paola Clouatre, 25, said in a phone interview Thursday. Asked how she feels being reunited with her husband and children, she said, "It feels good — good to be back with my family and my babies." She had just given birth to their second child and was still breastfeeding when she was detained on May 27. She was taken to an ICE detention facility in northern Louisiana, about four hours away from their Baton Rouge home. Her husband, Adrian Clouatre, would drive eight hours round-trip each week to visit with their infant daughter and 2-year-old son. "It was very difficult," Paola said. "They gave me a pump so I could pump milk and continue producing milk for when the baby came to be able to give it to her." Adrian Clouatre, 26, served in the Marine Corps for five years as an intelligence analyst. He said his wife was put in handcuffs in the lobby of an immigration enforcement field office in New Orleans after wrapping up a meeting with a staffer from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services about her green card application. "I was furious," he said in an interview with CBS News in June about the arrest. "I felt betrayed. They told us we passed the interview. ... They knew I was a veteran, they knew that my wife was breastfeeding our 9-week-old daughter, they knew we had two kids. ... I cried the whole way to my car after I left the building." Asked about the conditions she experienced during her time inside the detention facility, Paola said, "It's difficult to be there, because they have a lot of rules. They are very strict. So it's very, very, hard to be there." But this week, Adrian said he finally got the call he'd been hoping for — his wife said she was going to be released, and he needed to make the drive one last time to pick her up. "She called me from a CPO [officer's] phone, like one of the ICE agent's phones," he said. Paola said she didn't meet anyone else detained inside the facility who had a military family member or who was still breastfeeding. The couple met when he was still in the service in California, and they married in 2024. Adrian says his wife now wears a monitor on her ankle, as part of her condition of release on a recognizance bond, and has to check in every two weeks with an ICE parole officer. The couple had one such appointment Thursday morning. "It was good to meet him today in the morning," Paola said about meeting with the parole officer assigned to her case. "He is a nice person." Paola says she and her mother came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was a child, but her mother abandoned her when she was still a teenager, leaving Paola homeless. She said she hadn't spoken to her mother in years. It wasn't until this spring that she learned her mother had skipped a 2018 immigration hearing, and she says she had "no idea" the federal government had issued a deportation order against both of them as a result. "There was no way for her to know about the removal order," Adrian said. Adrian said they thought they were going through the proper channels to obtain a green card for Paola after their marriage, and the process had previously gone smoothly. Instead, Paola became one of tens of thousands of people in custody and facing deportation as the Trump administration pushes for immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day. As of June 27, arrests by ICE during President Trump's second term had reached 109,000 — an increase of about 120% from the same time period in 2024 under President Biden — according to a CBS News analysis of government data. The majority of those arrests took place in border and Southern states, figures show. After her release, Adrian says the family still has a long road ahead. First, he says they are seeking to get the deportation order dismissed. Then they will seek to obtain a status called "parole in place," which helps immediate family members of military service members have a more streamlined path to obtaining a green card. On June 9, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted on social media about the case, writing that when Paola Clouatre "was apprehended by @CBP and ordered removed by a judge in 2018, she chose to defy the order and stay in the U.S. 7 years later, she had another bad idea and applied for a Green Card. @ICEgov took her into custody at our New Orleans office. @DHSgov has a long memory and no tolerance for defiance when it comes to making America safe again." New federal priorities to detain immigrants with pending deportation orders are taking higher precedence than the deference previously afforded to military families, immigration law experts say. According to federal memos, the Trump administration has made any non-citizens with pending deportation orders a priority for arrests. During his wife's months in detention, Adrian sent letters to elected officials pleading for their help — even two letters to President Trump. He says it was office staff of Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy that stepped up and advocated for his wife's case. CBS News has reached out to Kennedy's office for comment. "I'm ecstatic, I'm extremely grateful to my lawyer, to John Kennedy's office, and the community for all the support," Adrian said. Paola echoed those feelings of appreciation. "I feel happy, grateful," she said. "Thankful for the senator spending time with my husband. Thank you to the community."
The Independent
30-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Military veteran reunited with his wife weeks after ICE detention
The wife of a US Marine Corps veteran has been released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, following advocacy from Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican. Paola Clouatre, a Mexican national, had been among tens of thousands held in ICE custody as President Donald Trump's administration continues its hardline immigration crackdown, pressing officers to arrest 3,000 people daily suspected of being in the US illegally. Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Senator Kennedy's office requested her release from the Department of Homeland Security last Friday, after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, Ms Clouatre was back home in Baton Rouge with her husband, Adrian Clouatre, and their two young children, having left a remote ICE detention centre in north Louisiana. Christy Tate, a constituent services representative for Senator Kennedy, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife's return, writing in an email: "I am so happy for you and your family. God is truly great!" The family's attorney, Carey Holliday, described Senator Kennedy's office as "instrumental" in their engagement with the Department of Homeland Security. Senator Kennedy's office did not provide further comment. Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans. Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump's immigration policies. 'Illegal immigration is illegal — duh,' Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man. The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be 'illegally' in the country. An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family's attorney reached out to Kennedy's office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May. Tate received Paola Clouatre's court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange. On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre's deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy's office, Tate said she 'sent the request to release' Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge's motion with the agency, emails show. In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it 'continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case' and had received the judge's decision from Kennedy's office 'for consideration." The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody. 'We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers," Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. 'If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us." Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application. She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre's mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre's release. Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would "actually look at the circumstances' before detaining people like his wife. 'It shouldn't just be like a blanket 'Oh, they're illegal, throw them in ICE detention.'' Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again. 'I was feeling bad,' she said of detention. 'I was feeling like I failed my kids.' It will likely be a multi-year court process before Paola Clouatre's immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said. For now, she's wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city's famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they'll finally get that chance again: 'We're going to make that day up.' Senator's office requests mother's release from ICE custodyBack with her children
San Francisco Chronicle
24-07-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
Mexican national married to a Marine Corps veteran seeks release from immigration custody
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A woman detained at a citizenship appointment in May will not be deported following a judge's ruling this week barring her removal, but her Marine Corps veteran husband said she remains in custody at immigration detention center in Louisiana. For two months, Paola Clouatre, 25, has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement complex in Monroe, waiting to learn whether she will be allowed to remain in the country. Once a week she is allowed to see her husband, who makes the eight-hour roundtrip trek from Baton Rouge so the mother can breastfeed their 4-month-old baby and see their 2-year-old son. Clouatre, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. seeking asylum with her mother more than a decade ago. After marrying her husband in 2024 and applying for her green card to legally live and work in the U.S., she learned that ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing. In May, during a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointment in New Orleans, a staffer asked about the deportation order. Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, with her husband telling The Associated Press that he and his wife were trying 'to do the right thing.' Soon after, officers arrived and handcuffed Clouatre. Adrian Clouatre has spent nearly eight weeks fighting for his wife's release, remaining optimistic that their family would soon be reunited outside the detention facility located nearly 180 miles (290 kilometers) from their south Louisiana home. On Wednesday, they got word that a judge in California — the original jurisdiction for Paola Clouatre's case — had stayed the order for her removal. Adrian Clouatre welcomed the decision. He said their lawyer is preparing paperwork seeking his wife's release, though it's not guaranteed and could take weeks even in the best of scenarios. 'I just keep telling our son, "'Mom's coming home soon,'' Adrian Clouatre said. Meanwhile, the couple's lawyer is working to get the Baton Rouge mother's green card process back on track, The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune reported. While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has already ruled that the couple has a valid marriage, the process has been held up amid the legal battle. The Baton Rouge mother is one of tens of thousands of people in custody as part of President Donald Trump's pledge to remove millions of people who are in the country without legal permission. Clouatre said GOP U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has also requested that the Department of Homeland Security release his wife from custody. Kennedy's office did not return AP's emailed request for comment. Kennedy is not the first Louisiana Republican to get involved in an immigration case in the reliably red state. Earlier this month, An Iranian mother, who was detained by ICE after living in the U.S. for nearly five decades, was released following advocacy from Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Winnipeg Free Press
24-07-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Mexican national married to a Marine Corps veteran seeks release from immigration custody
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A woman detained at a citizenship appointment in May will not be deported following a judge's ruling this week barring her removal, but her Marine Corps veteran husband said she remains in custody at immigration detention center in Louisiana. For two months, Paola Clouatre, 25, has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement complex in Monroe, waiting to learn whether she will be allowed to remain in the country. Once a week she is allowed to see her husband, who makes the eight-hour roundtrip trek from Baton Rouge so the mother can breastfeed their 4-month-old baby and see their 2-year-old son. Clouatre, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. seeking asylum with her mother more than a decade ago. After marrying her husband in 2024 and applying for her green card to legally live and work in the U.S., she learned that ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing. In May, during a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointment in New Orleans, a staffer asked about the deportation order. Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, with her husband telling The Associated Press that he and his wife were trying 'to do the right thing.' Soon after, officers arrived and handcuffed Clouatre. Adrian Clouatre has spent nearly eight weeks fighting for his wife's release, remaining optimistic that their family would soon be reunited outside the detention facility located nearly 180 miles (290 kilometers) from their south Louisiana home. On Wednesday, they got word that a judge in California — the original jurisdiction for Paola Clouatre's case — had stayed the order for her removal. Adrian Clouatre welcomed the decision. He said their lawyer is preparing paperwork seeking his wife's release, though it's not guaranteed and could take weeks even in the best of scenarios. 'I just keep telling our son, ''Mom's coming home soon,'' Adrian Clouatre said. Meanwhile, the couple's lawyer is working to get the Baton Rouge mother's green card process back on track, The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune reported. While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has already ruled that the couple has a valid marriage, the process has been held up amid the legal battle. The Baton Rouge mother is one of tens of thousands of people in custody as part of President Donald Trump's pledge to remove millions of people who are in the country without legal permission. Clouatre said GOP U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has also requested that the Department of Homeland Security release his wife from custody. Kennedy's office did not return AP's emailed request for comment. Kennedy is not the first Louisiana Republican to get involved in an immigration case in the reliably red state. Earlier this month, An Iranian mother, who was detained by ICE after living in the U.S. for nearly five decades, was released following advocacy from Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
The Independent
24-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Mexican national married to a Marine Corps veteran seeks release from immigration custody
A woman detained at a citizenship appointment in May will not be deported following a judge's ruling this week barring her removal, but her Marine Corps veteran husband said she remains in custody at immigration detention center in Louisiana. For two months, Paola Clouatre, 25, has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement complex in Monroe, waiting to learn whether she will be allowed to remain in the country. Once a week she is allowed to see her husband, who makes the eight-hour roundtrip trek from Baton Rouge so the mother can breastfeed their 4-month-old baby and see their 2-year-old son. Clouatre, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. seeking asylum with her mother more than a decade ago. After marrying her husband in 2024 and applying for her green card to legally live and work in the U.S., she learned that ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing. In May, during a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointment in New Orleans, a staffer asked about the deportation order. Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, with her husband telling The Associated Press that he and his wife were trying 'to do the right thing.' Soon after, officers arrived and handcuffed Clouatre. Adrian Clouatre has spent nearly eight weeks fighting for his wife's release, remaining optimistic that their family would soon be reunited outside the detention facility located nearly 180 miles (290 kilometers) from their south Louisiana home. On Wednesday, they got word that a judge in California — the original jurisdiction for Paola Clouatre's case — had stayed the order for her removal. Adrian Clouatre welcomed the decision. He said their lawyer is preparing paperwork seeking his wife's release, though it's not guaranteed and could take weeks even in the best of scenarios. 'I just keep telling our son, "'Mom's coming home soon,'' Adrian Clouatre said. Meanwhile, the couple's lawyer is working to get the Baton Rouge mother's green card process back on track, The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune reported. While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has already ruled that the couple has a valid marriage, the process has been held up amid the legal battle. The Baton Rouge mother is one of tens of thousands of people in custody as part of President Donald Trump's pledge to remove millions of people who are in the country without legal permission. Clouatre said GOP U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has also requested that the Department of Homeland Security release his wife from custody. Kennedy's office did not return AP's emailed request for comment. Kennedy is not the first Louisiana Republican to get involved in an immigration case in the reliably red state. Earlier this month, An Iranian mother, who was detained by ICE after living in the U.S. for nearly five decades, was released following advocacy from Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
