ICE arrested a green-card holder while she was gardening and kept her for a year

Her paperwork was legal. Her freedom was apparently optional.

Beata Siemionkowicz had lived legally in the United States for decades when ICE agents grabbed her from a backyard garden and shoved her into a car. She has now spent 51 weeks in detention over misdemeanor cases her family says were cleared up years ago.

Claudia, 25, and Gabi, 21, Siemionkowicz’s daughters, heard the news of her arrest via a phone call from Siemionkowicz’s second husband, John.

“He was hysterical, crying,” Claudia said. “He’s like, ‘I couldn’t do anything. They just took her, grabbed her, and shoved her in the car.’”

Siemionkowicz was arrested Aug. 2, 2025. She was one of just 33 Poles to be booked into a Chicago-area ICE detention center, according to a Tribune analysis of ICE data provided by the research group Deportation Data Project. However, more than half — 19 — were Polish immigrants arrested during the main, 64-day surge of Operation Midway Blitz.

Illinois Tribune

Her first night in Kentucky was spent in a cell replete with black mold, dead bedbugs, and blood smeared above the door. Another green-card holder detained under similar circumstances has since been freed after a federal judge found she was not deportable. Siemionkowicz has lost nearly a year of her life.

Her paperwork? Legal. Her freedom, however, is optional.