Cliona Ward’s ICE nightmare
Portland OR. 11 June 2025.
Who is Cliona ward?
Cliona Ward was the woman from Dublin living in Santa Cruz who liked to party too much and take too many risks.
Cliona Ward became the Irish mom and daughter who cares for a son with a chronic illness and visits her Dad, who’s got Alzheimer's, in Ireland.
Cliona Ward is a legal immigrant with a Green Card who was detained in the ICE follies, but released when supporters spoke up and the mistake of her detention was finally corrected
Here is her story
Cliona Ward left Ireland for San Francisco in 1983. She was 12. Her journey was the same one young Irish women have been taking for nearly two centuries. Had she come a century earlier, she might have found work as a Brigid, which is what all Irish girls working as domestics were called.
In one way, Ireland hadn’t changed much from 1883, when 200,000 of its citizens left for America, to 1983. People were still its leading export. The Irish economy was a basket case in both Eighties. Families were often faced with the decision of which children to send to America. In 1983 young Cliona was one of 20,000 who chose or were chosen to leave. May not sound like a lot, but if the same percentage of Americans left in one year the number would be 1.4 million departing.
She eventually ended up at UC Santa Cruz, a university built in the late sixties in a forest so there would be no central plaza where students might stage protests. Life for Cliona in Santa Cruz was good but not without temptations. She hit a rough patch. Committed crimes. Did the time. Got her shit together and lived on the right side of the law for 30 years.
Less than two months ago though, the wild years caught up with her. Returning from Ireland in late March, where she had visited her dad, she was called into an office at SFO. Turns out the crimes she had expunged from her record in California for good behavior, still lived in the Federal system. Her Green Card, which she's held for 30 years, didn’t save her. She was eventually shipped off to an ICE Detention Facility in Tacoma.
It became clear that even though her convictions had been expunged by California, word hadn’t gotten to the feds that she’d paid her dues. Once it did though, her May 7 day in court was anticlimactic, which was a huge relief when word was received in Ireland. “When Cliona appeared before the judge this morning, she was informed that the decision had been made to drop all proceedings against her and she will be released this afternoon,” Ms. Ward’s sister, Midleton (Co. Cork) resident Tracey Ward told the Irish Examiner.
What it took. All hands on deck.
What saved Cliona Ward was the rapid response of relatives who contacted everyone they could think of. As a result, the Taoiseach of Ireland (think Prime Minister) spoke out on her behalf, Cliona being an Irish citizen. Also alerted was her local Congressman, Democratic Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who has inordinate clout despite being in the minority party because his dad is Washington heavyweight Leon Panetta. Then there was Cliona’s union, the Service Employes International Union (SEIU), which turned out the troops in her support. (Cliona is paid by the State of California to provide her son with the care that keeps him from being institutionalized. Such caretakers have been allowed to join unions in California since 2000.)
Cliona is back home in Santa Cruz, watching what’s happening in Los Angeles and posting about it on Facebook. It’s hard to call this a happy ending. She spent almost two weeks in detention in Tacoma (“the water was undrinkable, the food not fit to eat.”). Her life was disrupted. She feared she might end up lost in the system.
Thousands are Sailing
It is estimated that 450,000 Irish citizens left for America during hard times in the 1980s. When Cliona left in 1983, the unemployment rate was 17%. Today it hovers above 4%. Cliona probably got her Green Card (legal residency) through family connections after producing all the proper documents and petitions and sitting for interviews. There is growing fear among some of today’s 50,000 Irish Green Card holders that it’s not the guarantee it once was.
The Pogues released a song in 1988 about the massive Irish emigration caused by An Gorta Mor - the Irish famine of 1845 - 1851 - during which 450,000 Irish came to America, and how, other than smaller numbers, things hadn’t changed much by 1983.
Thousands are sailing again across the ocean where the hand of opportunity draws tickets in a lottery. Postcards we're mailing of sky-blue skies and oceans. from rooms the daylight never sees. And lights don't glow on Christmas trees. But we dance to the music and we dance.