PK Hattis, Santa Cruz Sentinel
SANTA CRUZ — Cliona Ward, a green card holder and Santa Cruz County resident who has been held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for almost two weeks, was granted release by a federal judge Wednesday.
“It has just been an absolutely surreal moment,” Ward’s sister, Orla Holladay, told the Sentinel hours after the release. “She’s in shock. We got her some food; she was starving.”
Holladay said she and a close friend of Ward’s arrived at the courthouse in Seattle early Wednesday for a rally in support of Ward that was organized by the union she is a member of — Service Employees International Union — prior to a scheduled hearing around 8:30 a.m.
After the rally, Holladay said she was initially denied entry to the courthouse and was told by a court employee that a hearing would not be taking place after all. But only a little while later, after arrival of Ward’s legal counsel, Erin Hall with Global Justice Law Group PLLC, they spoke again with the court’s staff and were told the charges against Ward had been terminated and that she would be released.
“(At) about 10:30 a.m., she walked out the door,” Holladay said, still in disbelief and a little confused by how events unfolded.
As soon as Ward was reunited with her family, they took her to a nearby store to decompress and grab a bite to eat. Ward excused herself for a moment to use the restroom, but stopped suddenly.
“She came back and she said, ‘I started to walk away and I realized I’m afraid to be alone and I’m in trauma and I’m going to need help,'” said Holladay.
Ward, 54, who moved to the United States from her native Ireland when she was 12, was stopped by immigration authorities in Washington state in late March on her way back to Santa Cruz from a trip to her homeland to visit her ailing father.
The federal officials called into question Ward’s decades-old drug possession convictions that she explained had been expunged, or cleared from her record. But despite later presenting this information to authorities in San Francisco, she was taken into custody by border protection officials April 21 and eventually moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Tacoma, Washington, where she had been confined since April 24.
Ward’s family previously told the Sentinel that she suffered from addiction issues more than 20 years ago that contributed to her run-ins with the law, but she went through the rehabilitation process and has been sober for decades since. In addition to working as a jack of all trades at a local Christian nonprofit group, Ward is also an in-home caretaker for her chronically ill son who has been receiving care from Holladay and other family members in her absence.
Ward’s attorney in Santa Cruz, Michael Mehr, told the Sentinel that the federal government’s case against Ward was vacated because she was not adequately afforded due process during several drug possession criminal convictions dating back to 2007 and 2008 that have since been expunged.
“The convictions were vacated because Cliona Ward did not receive advice by her criminal attorneys about the devastating immigration consequences of even a simple possession of drugs conviction,” said Mehr.
Mehr added that last week a Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge, in a decision supported by the county District Attorney’s Office, granted Ward post-conviction relief — a formal recognition of her lack of adequate legal counsel almost 20 years prior. That was enough, Mehr said, to render the current case against Ward moot.
“Prior to the current Trump administration, Customs and Border Protection would not have detained a lawful permanent resident returning from a short trip abroad for expunged convictions that are decades old,” said Mehr. “Unfortunately, the current Trump administration is unreasonably detaining and deporting foreign nationals from the United States for insufficient reasons or to deprive them of the right to freedom of speech in other cases.”
The day before Ward was granted her freedom, Rep. Jimmy Panetta told the Sentinel that he was optimistic things were moving in a positive direction but said Ward’s case is indicative of a “dangerous deportation policy” coming from President Donald Trump’s administration and highlights why due process must remain a cornerstone of American life.
“Even when you have someone like Cliona that is contributing to this community after taking responsibility and being (rehabilitated) from her drug addiction to the point where she has a full-time job, taking care of her ailing son, being repeatedly OK’d for legal permanent residency; even a person like that can get wrapped up in this,” said Panetta. “So it is our responsibility to ensure that there is due process for people like Cliona; for everybody in the United States.”
Panetta, who has been publicly pushing for Ward’s release for weeks, was among the small group of public officials that were alerted to her unexpected detainment early on and helped connect her family to legal resources.
“Cliona Ward’s release demonstrates what can happen when we come together to fight for transparency, due process, and justice. We fought for Cliona from the top down and the bottom up. I pressured officials from the White House to the Irish government,” Panetta wrote in a release Wednesday. “We worked with her exceptional legal team from Seattle to Santa Cruz. And we coordinated with community advocates and her family. We fought to make sure that all of the facts about Cliona and her case were presented so that the Court could use its full discretion and do the right thing.”
He added that as a former narcotics and gang prosecutor, he understood the need to remove gang members and violent criminals from communities, but Ward’s case was an example of the Trump administration “doing the wrong thing when it comes to its overreaching deportation policies that can sweep up people like Cliona.”
At the same time Holladay was preparing to enter the courthouse in Seattle, close to 100 people gathered outside the Santa Cruz County Courthouse in solidarity with Ward, and to call for the 30-year county resident’s immediate release. The rally was organized by SEIU Local 2015, the union representing California’s long term caregivers that Ward is a longtime member of, in conjunction with the event in Seattle. But the rally was also attended by dozens of local residents pushing for Ward’s release and expressing concern about what her detention means for the country as a whole.
“The injustice that is being perpetrated on legal residents is unfathomable,” said Kelly Menehan, an organizer with Indivisible Santa Cruz County. “I know we have to protest now in order to be able to protest in the future.”
Patti Martin, a county resident of more than 40 years, said she read stories in recent weeks about lawful U.S. residents unexpectedly being detained by immigration authorities, but she never imagined the news would hit so close to home.
“How could this happen here?” said Martin. “It’s shocking when it does come to your community.”
According to SEIU 2015 Chief Operations Officer David Werlin, almost half of the union’s 500,000 members are immigrants and they remain an irreplaceable piece of California’s caregiver population.
“We’re here for (Cliona), we’re here to support her, but we’re also here to point out that this is a broken system,” said Werlin. He later added, “They want immigrants to live in fear, they want caregivers to feel less than, they want women to feel less than. And it has to stop.”
State Assemblymembers Gail Pellerin and Dawn Addis also publicly pushed for Ward’s release and sought to raise the profile of her case, which has received international attention. Holladay credited Ward’s legal team, elected officials and the public’s relentless and loud advocacy in helping bring about her sister’s exoneration.
“Cliona is in this country legally. She is not only following the rules—she is actively contributing to the well-being and vibrancy of our community,” wrote Pellerin, who was contacted about Ward’s detention very early on, in a statement. “Her case serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of due process, dignity, and fair treatment for all individuals, regardless of their immigration status. No one should be subjected to unjust detention, and every person deserves to have their voice heard and their rights protected.”
Still spinning from the events of the day, Holladay spent Wednesday afternoon booking two tickets back home to California while her sister rested.
“We’re just trying to hold her close,” she said.