1. United States
  2. Texas
  3. Letter

Release of Marie-Thérèse Ross and Immediate ICE Detention Oversight

To: Rep. Crenshaw, Sen. Cornyn, Sen. Cruz

From: A verified voter in Spring, TX

April 15

I am writing as your constituent to demand action on two urgent matters: the immediate release of Marie-Thérèse Ross, an 86-year-old French widow currently held in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, and meaningful congressional oversight of ICE detention conditions. Marie-Thérèse Ross came to the United States to marry her long-lost love — a retired American colonel she first met in the 1960s, when he was a U.S. serviceman stationed at a NATO base in France. They were widowed, reconnected after decades apart, married in 2025, and were awaiting approval of her green card when her husband died suddenly in January. Days before a scheduled legal hearing, ICE arrested her at her home in Alabama, shackling her hands and feet. She is now held with approximately 70 other detainees in a Louisiana facility — a woman with documented heart and back problems. Her children in France have said she will not survive a month in these conditions. The French Foreign Ministry has intervened and conducted a consular visit. The French government is pressing for her release. The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed it is targeting "the worst of the worst." Marie-Thérèse Ross is 86 years old, widowed, medically vulnerable, and poses no risk to anyone. She is not the worst of anything. Her continued detention is indefensible. I urge you to call for her immediate release on humanitarian grounds. Her case is not isolated — it is symptomatic of a system operating without adequate oversight or accountability. According to a KFF analysis of ICE detainee death reporting, 46 people have died in ICE custody or detention since January 2025, the deadliest period in over two decades. Of those deaths, 32 were among people with pre-existing medical conditions whose health appeared to worsen in custody. Six people have already died in ICE custody in 2026 alone. Senator Jon Ossoff's ongoing investigation has documented over 1,000 credible reports of human rights abuses in ICE facilities, including medical neglect, denial of food and water, mistreatment of pregnant women, and abuse of children. ICE has not paid third-party medical providers since October 2025. Its own internal audits have identified failures to complete intake screenings and identify life-threatening medical conditions at facilities where multiple people have since died. I ask you to: 1. Publicly demand the immediate release of Marie-Thérèse Ross on humanitarian and medical grounds. 2. Press for a full congressional investigation into ICE detention conditions, including the detention of elderly and medically vulnerable individuals. 3. Demand accountability for the deaths of 46 people in ICE custody since January 2025, and require independent review of each death. 4. Support legislation to restrict ICE detention of individuals who are elderly, medically vulnerable, or present no credible flight risk or public safety threat. The United States is detaining an 86-year-old widow of an American serviceman in a facility with documented abuse — while calling it enforcement. Congress must act.

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