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An 86-year-old French woman who was detained at an immigration enforcement centre in the US has returned to France, the country’s foreign minister says.
Marie-Thérèse, who is from the city of Nantes, moved to the US last year after marrying her long-lost love, Billy – an American man who died in January.
Her sounded the alarm after his mother was arrested in Anniston, Alabama, earlier this month.
“Mum is finally free! It’s a total relief,” French outlet Ouest-France quoted her son as saying following her release.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed Marie-Thérèse had arrived back in the country on Friday morning, adding: “We are pleased about that.”
The New York Times, citing one of her sons, reported that she was still dressed in her prison uniform, which was covered in stains and holes, when he and his siblings were reunited with her at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“She was in a state of shock and was physically and spiritually exhausted after the ordeal,” he said.
The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the BBC earlier this week that an “illegal alien from France” matching Marie-Thérèse’s name had entered the country in June 2025 and overstayed her 90-day visa.
According to an earlier report by Ouest-France, her son said she was awaiting a green card when she was detained.
He told the paper that his mother had met Billy in the 1960s, when he was a soldier stationed at the Nato base of Saint-Nazaire and she was a secretary.
Billy later returned to the US and they lost touch, going on to marry other people and have children. The pair reconnected in 2010 and visited one another with their spouses, Ouest-France reported.
By 2022, both were widowed and started a relationship. Billy was a “charming, adorable man”, Marie-Thérèse’s son said, adding that the couple were in love “like teenagers”.
They married last year and Marie-Thérèse relocated to Alabama, applying for a green card – a long-term visa – that would grant her the right to remain in the US.
She had not yet received the green card when Billy died suddenly in January, leaving her immigration status unclear.
Shortly afterwards, one of his sons and Marie-Thérèse reportedly entered a dispute over his inheritance.
Billy’s son “threatened her, intimidated her, and even went so far as to cut off her water, internet, and electricity,” her son told Ouest-France.
Marie-Thérèse hired a lawyer but was arrested by ICE the day before a scheduled hearing. Neighbours alerted her children.
“They handcuffed her hands and feet like she was a dangerous criminal,” he said.
Since the start of US President Donald Trump’s second term in office, ICE has taken a central role in carrying out his administration’s mass deportation initiative.
Its budget and mission have been significantly expanded and it plays a key role in removing undocumented immigrants from the US.
Asked about the detention methods used by ICE, Barrot said on Friday that they were “not necessarily in line – I am not referring to this specific case, but more generally – with those currently in force and acceptable to us.
“There have been acts of violence that have given us cause for concern, but the main thing is that she [Marie-Thérèse] is back in France.”
