Quick Take
Family, friends and fellow union members plan to rally in support of detained Santa Cruz resident and green card holder Cliona Ward at the Santa Cruz County courthouse Wednesday morning. Ward was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at San Francisco International Airport on April 21.
Friends, family and members of the Service Employees International Union plan to rally Wednesday morning to demand the release of detained Santa Cruz resident Cliona Ward.
Community members plan to gather at the Santa Cruz County courthouse, 701 Ocean St., at 8 a.m. The rally organized by the SEIU — of which Ward, a caregiver, is a member — will also take place the same day as Ward’s first immigration court hearing since she was moved to a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, around April 24. Organizers are planning a similar rally in Tacoma.
The rally also aims to highlight how anti-immigrant enforcement disrupts families and “destabilizes the long-term care system, and will urge policymakers to take immediate action to reunite Cliona with her family,” according to a media release from the SEIU.
“We’re lifting up our voices to back up our sister Cliona, who’s a member of our union. But also to really tell the story that caregivers, immigrants deserve better,” said SEIU Local 2015 California president Arnulfo De La Cruz.
The union represents nearly half a million caregivers, including Ward, and De La Cruz estimates that half are immigrants. Ward’s case is reflective of a broken immigration system, which might be why her case is garnering so much attention, he said.
Ward is the primary caretaker for her U.S. citizen son, who has a chronic illness, De La Cruz said.
“The idea that you would try to remove a caregiver, or detain them, a legal permanent resident who’s caring for her son, who may not survive if he doesn’t have the care of her mother, is just absurd,” De La Cruz said.
Ward, 54, is an Irish citizen and U.S. permanent resident who has lived in Santa Cruz for 30 years. She was detained on April 21 at San Francisco International Airport after presenting documents to prove that her previous criminal charges had been expunged by the state.
Ward was initially detained by customs in early March because of her previous criminal history after she returned to the country from visiting her sick father in Ireland, according to her roommate Magdalene Kavanagh-Hetrick, who had emailed Lookout about Ward’s detention. Ward was released and given time to collect any documents that proved her previous criminal convictions from 2007 and 2008 for drug possession
had been expunged.
When she returned to the airport on April 21 with the proper documentation, Ward was detained again after authorities said they could not verify that her criminal record had been expunged, according to Kavanagh-Hetrick’s email.
Ward’s sister, Orla Holladay, has set up a GoFundMe page to help with legal fees; it has raised nearly $47,000 over the past two weeks.
Holladay has provided almost daily updates on Ward’s well-being through the page, sharing how officers handcuffed and shackled Ward as they escorted her through the Tacoma airport.
Ward was initially placed in a holding cell but has since been moved to a permanent unit, called a “pod,” according to Holladay. Ward told her sister that the conditions in the detention center are challenging. Holladay wrote that the water was “undrinkable” and the food was “not fit to eat.”
Despite difficult conditions at the facility, Ward told her sister that staff members have shown compassion. Food servers and escorts make sure detainees have access to basic necessities such as showers and clean clothes. After going several days without one, Ward was finally able to shower, a moment her sister described as deeply meaningful.
“Although she can’t speak with the majority of the women in there because most don’t speak English, they have been giving each other support,” Holladay said. Ward has been sharing her commissary funds and phone time with other detainees, according to her sister. “What she said to me emphatically is that the majority of the women she is in this prison with share with her is that they are afraid they will get lost in the system.”
The ultimate goal is to bring Ward back to California, said De La Cruz. “We want to bring her back to her son, back to Santa Cruz, and get her out of Washington and out of detainment. That’s really the goal,” he said.
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FOR THE RECORD: This story was updated to correct the nature of the criminal charges at issue in this case.
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