When Your Daughter is Kidnapped by ICE
I talk to Betty, who's daughter was taken by ICE.
Hi,
As a New Zealander living in the United States under Donald Trump, it’s always a little blurry about exactly how worried you should be about being snatched up by ICE.
I've written about this a lot. Webworm has reported from ICE detention centres in Los Angeles and Portland, and been teargassed by masked goons in Minneapolis an hour after ICE executed Alex Pretti.
And then things feel like they settle. That they are calming down. No-one cares about little ol' New Zealand. Maybe it's safe.
Then ICE snatches a New Zealander with a valid green card from LAX, and you realise everything is still utterly fucked.
I spent my morning talking to Betty Wihongi, whose daughter has been kidnapped by ICE.
Betty is a New Zealander who’s been living in the United States since the mid-90s. Her husband - a train driver - was poached by Wisconsin Central when it bought New Zealand Rail in 1993.
The couple moved to Wisconsin and set up a new life. And they’ve been living that life quite happily, raising their kids in the American midwest.
Over the last few decades they’ve happily travelled to and from Aotearoa, New Zealand – keeping up with friends and family. There have never been any issues – until ten days ago, when ICE snatched her daughter Everlee, 36, when they came back through LAX.
Since then, Betty and her family have been trying to figure out how to get Everlee out.
Today, I’ve edited my conversation with Betty down to about 30 minutes, as she explains in detail about what happened when her family went through customs on their return from New Zealand, and how ICE treated them in the process.
She talks about the pressure her daughter was put through to sign papers, and how Everlee is now detained with 46 other people in a room at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center – with no idea when she'll be free.
She talks about the logistics of keeping in touch, getting Everlee money, the uncertainty of the future, and the way her daughter has taken to caring for older, injured people she’s detained with.
"There's an old, I think she's in her 70s, Vietnamese lady in there that can't walk properly. She must have fallen when she first came in, and she has a wheelchair that she kind of uses as a walker. Everlee and old people - they get on really well - so she's kind of looking after her."
We get into the possible reasons Everlee was detained: A stolen green card and a change of address meaning Everlee had to apply for multiple green cards (apparently a crime now?) – and an old charge of possession of marijuana (gasp!) that had already been dealt with. There are a million reasons running through her family's heads. Online, Everlee has been outspoken about the Palestinian genocide.
Somehow, in all of this, her mum Betty still has a sense of humour.
“If I get upset, she'll get upset. So I just have to not be upset."
I hope you listen to the conversation. There is a GoFundMe which I have contributed to – and depending on what's appropriate, I may make the three hour drive to the detention centre later this week.
Everlee is yet to have a visitor.
David.
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