A Marine Corps veteran's wife has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention following advocacy from Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who backs President Donald Trump's hardline immigration crackdown.
Until this week, Mexican national Paola Clouatre had been one of tens of thousands of people in ICE custody as the Trump administration continues to press immigration officers to arrest 3,000 people a day suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Kennedy's office said Friday that it put in a request for the Department of Homeland Security to release her after a judge halted her deportation order earlier that week. By Monday, she was out of a remote ICE detention center in north Louisiana and home in Baton Rouge with her veteran husband Adrian Clouatre and their two young children.
Kennedy's constituent services representative, Christy Tate, congratulated Adrian Clouatre on his wife's release and thanked him for his military service. "I am so happy for you and your family," Tate wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. "God is truly great!"
Kennedy's office proved "instrumental" in engaging with the Department of Homeland Security, according to Carey Holliday, the family's attorney. Kennedy's office did not provide further comment.
Another Louisiana Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also intervened recently with the Department of Homeland Security to secure the release of an Iranian mother from ICE detention following widespread outcry. The woman has lived for decades in New Orleans.
Kennedy has generally been a staunch supporter of Trump's immigration policies.
"Illegal immigration is illegal — duh," Kennedy posted on his Facebook page on July 17, amid a series of recent media appearances decrying efforts to prevent ICE officers from making arrests. In April, however, he criticized the Trump administration for mistakenly deporting a Maryland man.
Senator's office requests mother's release from ICE custody
The Department of Homeland Security previously told The AP it considered Clouatre to be "illegally" in the country.
An email chain shared by Adrian Clouatre shows that the family's attorney reached out to Kennedy's office in early June after Paola Clouatre was detained in late May.
Tate received Paola Clouatre's court documents by early July and said she then contacted ICE, according to the email exchange.
On July 23, an immigration judge halted Paola Clouatre's deportation order. After Adrian Clouatre notified Kennedy's office, Tate said she "sent the request to release" Paola Clouatre to DHS and shared a copy of the judge's motion with the agency, emails show.
In an email several days later, Tate said that ICE told her it "continues to make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case" and had received the judge's decision from Kennedy's office "for consideration."
The next working day, Paola Clouatre was released from custody.
"We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers," Tate said in an email to Adrian Clouatre. "If you need our assistance in the future, please contact us."
Back with her children
Paola Clouatre had been detained by ICE officers on May 27 during an appointment related to her green card application.
She had entered the country as a minor with her mother from Mexico more than a decade ago and was legally processed while seeking asylum, she, her husband and her attorney say. But Clouatre's mother later failed to show up for a court date, leading a judge to issue a deportation order against Paola Clouatre in 2018, though by then she had become estranged from her mother and was homeless.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Clouatre's release.
Adrian Clouatre said he wished the agency would "actually look at the circumstances" before detaining people like his wife. "It shouldn't just be like a blanket 'Oh, they're illegal, throw them in ICE detention.'"
Reunited with her breastfeeding infant daughter and able to snuggle with her toddler son, Paola Clouatre told AP she feels like a mother again.
"I was feeling bad," she said of detention. "I was feeling like I failed my kids."
It will likely be a multiyear court process before Paola Clouatre's immigration court proceedings are formally closed, but things look promising, and she should be able to obtain her green card eventually, her attorney said.
For now, she's wearing an ankle monitor, but still able to pick up life where she left off, her husband says. The day of her arrest in New Orleans, the couple had planned to sample some of the city's famed French pastries known as beignets and her husband says they'll finally get that chance again: "We're going to make that day up."
