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Canton mom held by ICE and CBP for 10 days over decades-old pardoned pot charge
Jemmy Jimenez Rosa was held at Logan Airport for multiple days as her family and lawyers frantically tried to find information on her.
A mother of four from Canton who is a legal permanent resident was detained for 10 days by federal agents earlier this month because she pleaded guilty to possessing a small amount of marijuana more than 20 years ago, according to her lawyer. The “outrageous” incident is prompting him to warn other non-citizens about the potential dangers of international travel under the current federal administration.
Jemmy Jimenez Rosa, a 42-year-old Peru native, is now back home with family. She was detained by Customs and Border Protection at Logan Airport on Aug. 11 as she returned to Boston from a family vacation in Cancun, Mexico, according to her lawyer, Todd Pomerleau.
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After Rosa and her family made their way through Logan, she was taken into a back room by CBP agents and asked a few vague questions, including “What happened in 2003?” according to Pomerleau.
Rosa had accepted responsibility for possessing a small amount of marijuana in Roxbury District Court and was later pardoned. Her record was sealed.
On the morning of Aug. 12, Pomerleau said he was contacted by Rosa’s husband and immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that her detainment was unconstitutional. While this was happening, Rosa experienced an anxiety attack and was rushed to a hospital. She was soon brought back to Logan and held there until Friday, Aug. 15, Pomerleau said.
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Rosa did not show up in any federal database for detainees until Aug. 14, he added. Normally, lawyers can seek bond hearings before an immigration judge, but they need to prove where their client is being held. Pomerleau said he could not do this for days.
“We weren’t confident she was even at Logan Airport, because we’ve heard horror stories in the news and from other colleagues of clients being disappeared,” he said.
On Aug. 14, Pomerleau said he and some colleagues went to Logan to confront CBP agents about Rosa’s detainment. They first claim that she had no right to council and that she was still in “inspection,” he said. The lawyers were not presented with any written charges against their client and were not told why she was being held.
Pomerleau was told that ICE had no free beds for female detainees in Massachusetts, so he agreed to have Rosa transferred to a facility in Maine. When she got to that facility on Aug. 15, it was the first time she found out that she even had a lawyer, he said. This is despite CBP agents telling Pomerleau the night before that they would relay a message to Rosa that she did in fact have representation.
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“She came here legally and as a 20-year-old college student, God forbid, that horrible person — she smoked some marijuana in her life. It’s not even a crime anymore. And they treated her with such a disdain for the rule of law. It’s unfathomable,” Pomerleau said.
Rosa was freed the following week, after her lawyers went to Roxbury District Court to get her marijuana conviction fully vacated.
Her release was also chaotic, marked by a lack of transparency from ICE about when and where she would be released, Pomerleau said. Rosa was eventually transferred to an ICE facility in Burlington and called her husband. But rainy weather and rush hour traffic delayed how long it took her husband and Pomerleau to reach the Burlington facility. By the time they got there, she was nowhere to be found and the facility appeared closed.
Pomerleau, who has been practicing immigration law for decades, said that normally lawyers are at least given a courtesy call about where and when their clients are going to be released. Instead, he and Rosa’s family had to wait until they got a call from her. She had borrowed a stranger’s phone at the Burlington Mall.
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Representatives for ICE and CBP did not return requests for comment.
“A green card is a privilege, not a right, and under our nation’s laws, our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused. Lawful Permanent Residents presenting at a U.S. port of entry with previous criminal convictions may be subject to mandatory detention and/or may be asked to provide additional documentation to be set up for an immigration hearing,” a CBP spokesperson told Boston 25 News, which first reported the story.
As ICE detainments ramp up, the agency is expected to expand dramatically with billions in additional funding. Pomerleau is telling other non-citizens to be very cautious, and to not travel without consulting a lawyer. A lot of people, like Rosa, are being misled into thinking that they have nothing to worry about, he said.
“For some reason a woman with, at most, a civil violation of immigration laws was treated worse than a terrorist,” Pomerleau said.
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