A British mother who faced detention by ICE while holding her infant during a green card meeting has now been freed.
Katie Paul, aged 33, was taken into custody at an immigration center in San Diego on November 19, where she was accompanied by her husband and their six-month-old son.
She had attended a standard green card appointment at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office, anticipating the completion of the necessary paperwork for her permanent residency.
However, moments after passing their son to her husband, Stephen Paul, also 33, she was unexpectedly handcuffed and led away by three ICE agents.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused her of overstaying her visa, which she had originally obtained when she relocated to the US last September to join her husband.
The couple wed shortly after her arrival. Though she intended to return to the UK while awaiting her permanent residency approval, her travel plans were halted due to a high-risk pregnancy that made flying inadvisable.
Paul claimed she was previously told by immigration officials that her visa status wouldn’t be a problem and the meeting was meant to get her paperwork in order and have her green card approved then and there, or just days later.
The new mother endured six days in immigration detention until she was released and given a green card after her husband filed a lawsuit.
Katie Paul, 33, left, was detained by ICE in front of her husband and six-month-old baby boy
Stephen Paul, 33, stopped working while his wife is detained in order to look after baby Alan
The complaint filed in federal court in San Diego demanded her released an her deportation be blocked. The government issued the green card in response.
Paul is just one of many immigrants around the US who have been detained at green card meetings in a new tactic quietly begun by ICE in recent months.
‘Individuals unlawfully present in the US, including those out of status at federal sites such as USCIS offices, may face arrest, detention, and removal in accordance with US immigration law,’ a statement from ICE said.
Federal laws passed in 1986 allow spouses of US citizens who entered the country legally to be eligible for permanent residency even if their visa expires.
However, that doesn’t prevent ICE from detaining them and starting deportation procedures in the interim.
‘We see the ICE agents come around, and they say that they’re arresting Katie,’ Stephen told NBC of his wife’s sudden detention.
‘She was just stunned. She kept asking what was wrong, what did we do? We’d done everything right.
‘We kept asking them if there was something we could do, if there was any way we could keep her from being separated from the family,’ he said.
But officers would only say: ‘I’m sorry. We’ve tried to not have to do it, but we’ve got direct orders.’
Paul’s pregnancy was deemed high-risk so she stayed in the US with medical approval while the couple began the green-card process
Despite overstaying her visa, Katie was told it would very likely not be a problem during her green card application process
Katie’s mother, Jules Peters, 55, said her daughter had been face-timing from the detention center, appearing exhausted and overwhelmed
The couple’s six-month-old son, Alan, was without his mother during her weeklong detention.
‘I had to take my baby, our baby, from his crying mother’s arms,’ Stephen previously said. ‘It took almost three hours to get a hold of her because we had to fight just to find out where to go, to ask to see her.
‘My baby doesn’t have his mom to hold him. I can’t work right now because I need to take care of him.
‘I can’t ask family to take care of him because I’m afraid if I don’t have him to take care of, I’m going to just fall apart worrying about Katie.’
Stephen eventually reached her by phone. ‘She said that she was scared. She was anxious, missed her baby. She just wants to come home,’ he said.
According to the family, even ICE personnel at the holding facility questioned the operation.
Katie recounted that agents in the detention center told her she was ‘not the sort of person we’re supposed to be arresting’.
The new mom originally traveled from Surrey, England, to California in September 2024 to visit Stephen, then her long-distance partner.
Weeks later, the two married after discovering Katie was pregnant.
Because the pregnancy was high-risk, she remained in the US with medical approval while the couple began the green card process.
Daily Mail has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
