Tag Archives: Maria Greeley

Post on ICE Detaining Latina U.S. Citizen Adoptee Gets Big Numbers (For My Blog)

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On October 15, I posted about a U.S. citizen detained by ICE. Maria Greeley is an adoptee, born in the U.S.. She is Latina, and may well have fit a certain racial profile for ICE detention and zip ties.

Mine is a small blog. I appreciate each of my readers very much; they are not a large group in comparison to others.

Yesterday alone, 592 visitors took a look at my blog; 590 of them looked at the Maria Greeley post. That’s wild for a single day on my blog. If anyone knows anything more, such as who picked up and shared my post, that would be great to know.

In any case, I am heartened by the fact that this news is getting out, via me and via many other sources. Thank you! The fact that a U.S. citizen was detained by ICE because her Irish-sounding adoptive family name did not fit her brown appearance is an ominous harbinger of sorts for many adoptees, including those not born in the U.S..

Check in on your adoptee community, your children, your friends. Acknowledge their concerns, especially if they are black or brown, about the ICE raids. If they are looking for advice, suggest that they carry a passport card, or a photocopy of their passport. Suggest they memorize the name and phone of an immigration lawyer. They may not need any of that; I hope I am being overly-cautious.

Let them know that you are thinking of them, especially of they are unsure of their citizenship status, or even if they are 100% sure they are citizens.

International adoptees without citizenship have been deported. Learn more about ways to support the Protect Adoptees and Adoptive Families Act to grant citizenship to them and other non-citizen adoptees.

And again, thank you to each person who has read my post, and more importantly, shared this information. May all of us receive due process. May all of us be safe.

ICE Detains U.S. Citizen Who Is Latina Adoptee

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Her name is Maria Greeley, and ICE agents in Chicago told her she didn’t “look like” her name. They zip-tied and detained her. She was born in the U.S. and adopted. She is Latina. She had a copy of her passport with her. ICE said her passport didn’t look real, and told her she was lying.

“I am Latina and I am a service worker, she told the Chicago Tribune. “I fit the description of what they’re looking for now,” according to Newsweek.

She remains a bit shaken and said the experience was frightening. No doubt.

It also looks like racial profiling.

Many international adoptees don’t “look like” their adopted name’s ethnicity. A Chinese or Mexican or Haitian adoptee with the last name “O’Donahue” (I’m using this Irish name randomly) could find themselves in the same position as Greeley–it sure seems the ICE agents saw things that way.

These are very frightening times. Racial profiling is real. Adoptees should probably carry at least a paper copy of their passport, or of their passport card. That is unwieldy, I realize, but keeping a photo on the phone could be more problematic if ICE then takes the phone. Make copies of the passport and give them to family and friends, just in case. Know the phone numbers by heart of family members and a lawyer if possible.

Another reason to carry ID is that our U.S. government is now apparently enforcing a law allowing folks to be fined if they don’t have their “documents” on them. According to an NBC news channel in Chicago, “Chicago man fined $130 by ICE agents for not carrying identification.”

I am no investigative reporter. I do find it odd, though, that I can no longer find the Chicago Tribune article mentioned in the Newsweek article. If anyone else finds the Tribune article, please let me know.

Also, I believe in fairness and due process. I find it troubling to sanction abuse by our government, yet we keep hearing of so many cases.

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ICE Detains Citizen After Saying She Doesn’t “Look Like” Her Last Name.