Swiss woman arrested in the US by immigration authorities
Keystone-SDA
A 23-year-old Swiss woman has been arrested at Dallas Airport by United States immigration (ICE) agents. She is threatened with expulsion despite being married to a US national and in the process of applying for a Green Card.
The woman is currently in detention pending deportation, despite being married to a US citizen and having applied for a residence permit. The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has confirmed the case.
The woman, from Zurich, was arrested last Friday at Dallas Airport in Texas, the Watson news portal reports. She was on her way to a family event when three officers from ICE, the US federal immigration agency, took her into custody.
The FDFA has confirmed the case to the Keystone-ATS news agency. The Swiss Consulate-General in Atlanta is in contact with the relevant authorities and the woman’s family.
However it cannot secure her release or intervene in legal proceedings, as Switzerland respects the US legal system. For reasons of data protection and privacy, the FDFA is not providing any further information.
The woman had travelled to the United States in 2023 as an au pair. It was during this time that she met her current husband. Following their marriage, which took place in mid-2025, the Swiss national applied for a permanent residence permit (Green Card).
The woman was unable to leave the US during the ongoing process. According to her family, her residence permit expired in November.
Relatives told Watson that following her arrest, she was initially transferred to a detention centre for deportation and subsequently moved to a prison in the state of Oklahoma. There, she was allegedly “treated like a dangerous criminal”, with handcuffs on her hands and feet.
She is currently believed to be back in a deportation detention centre near Dallas, where she shares a room with 70 other women.
Risk of a re-entry ban
A US lawyer specialising in immigration law, interviewed by Watson, explained that such arrests whilst a Green Card application is pending only became standard practice from US president Donald Trump’s second term onwards.
The expert sees this as a political manoeuvre and an attempt by the government to “bring immigration to the United States to zero”.
According to some lawyers, the woman probably has no choice but to leave the country voluntarily, which would result in a ban on re-entry for several years. The family is preparing for the 23-year-old’s imminent deportation to Switzerland.
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Translated from Italian, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
