Donna Hughes-Brown moved to the United States with her family in 1978 when she was 11 years old.
Her parents are Irish nationals, but Hughes-Brown was born in England just outside of Birmingham. She met her current husband, U.S. Navy veteran Jim Brown, in 2015; they got married three years later. She’s lived in multiple states and has had legal residency status (i.e. a green card) for much her life.
She speaks with an American accent.
“I don’t look like I’m from another country, nor do I sound like I’m from another country,” Hughes-Brown said. “Anybody, to meet me on the street, would assume I’m American, and I’m not.”
She’s lived in Missouri since 2011 and legally left and re-entered the country in 2016 to go to Ireland without issue. She took a similar trip in 2025, departing from Dublin to Chicago O’Hare International Airport on July 29. As she and her husband got off the plane, Hughes-Brown said they were separated in the shuffle of the crowd. When she presented her passport to the Customs agent, he told her that she needed “fill out some paperwork.”
This was the beginning of Hughes-Brown’s roughly five-month journey through immigration detention, much of which was spent at the Campbell County Detention Center. Her story received national attention and even became the topic of a Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.
She was released from custody in Campbell County on Dec. 18.
Hughes-Brown talked with LINK nky at length about her experience moving through the machinery of immigration detention, both in and out of Kentucky. Although we weren’t able to corroborate every detail of her account, her journey offers insight into immigration detention, both locally and throughout the country.
“I don’t want to assign blame to anybody,” Hughes-Brown said. “I want it to stop. It needs to be fixed. I don’t care who started it. I don’t care what your political affiliation is. It has to stop.”
Sins of the past
Hughes-Brown had a green card, which makes her a legal permanent resident of the United States, at the time of her detainment in Chicago. So, why was she detained?
I don’t look like I’m from another country nor do I sound like I’m from another country. Anybody, to meet me on the street, would assume I’m American, and I’m not.”
donna hughes-brown
Federal law allows for the deportation of legal residents if they commit a crime of “moral turpitude” for which they received a sentence of one year or longer within the 10 years prior to entering the country.
The category of moral turpitude is admittedly broad and actually began appearing in U.S. immigration law in the 19th century. Yet, committing such a crime doesn’t necessarily guarantee someone will get deported; it just makes them eligible. At the end of the day, whether one is actually deported or not comes down to whether enforcement agencies believe it’s worth the effort and resources.
What were Hughes-Brown’s crimes?
Writing two bad checks in Missouri, one in 2012 and the other in 2015. Hughes-Brown told LINK nky that “both times, neither check was an intended fraud check.” Essentially, she wrote the checks without checking to see if there was money in her bank account first.
“The first one was written for groceries,” Hughes-Brown said. “The second one was written for gas.” Both checks were written for less than $50 each.
The bounced checks, naturally, landed her in court. The courts didn’t find her lack of intention a compelling reason to forego sentencing her: “Did the check clear? No. Therefore, I am guilty. Whether I intended for it to clear, not clear is a moot point because the end result was still the same. It did not clear.”
Hughes-Brown was ordered to pay restitution for the first check to offset the money the grocery store lost and sentenced to a year of probation. LINK nky was not able to track down court records for the first check, but other news outlets have obtained charging documents. LINK nky did locate court records for the second check, which show the judge sentenced her to 30 days but suspended the sentence, meaning she didn’t spend any time in jail. Court records indicate she successfully served a year of unsupervised probation.
In short, she did her time and moved on.
Until 2025.
Certain countries, including Ireland, allow for U.S. border agents to operate in their airports. According to Hughes-Brown, the American Customs agents in Dublin stopped her and her husband for about an hour and half because of “something about them needing some paperwork” before finally letting them both on the plane.
“As we’re landing in Chicago, there’s an announcement that comes on the loudspeaker about, ‘Please have your passports ready to show the officer at the door,'” Hughes-Brown said. “That was the first clue that maybe something was awry, but I didn’t think much of it.”
She got off the plane first, getting separated from her husband in the line of people behind her. Upon meeting the border agent, she got the same line she got in Ireland: “I had some paperwork that I needed to sign.”
She and her husband were set to fly to St. Louis next, and as they were waiting for the papers, the agent informed them that her husband could go ahead and get on their next flight. She could catch the next flight to St. Louis, the agent said, according to Hughes-Brown. So, her husband got on the next flight as planned.
After her husband left, the agent informed her that they were going to handcuff her and take her down on the tarmac to be transported to a special office on the opposite end of the airport. The handcuffs went on, and she was taken in a van to the office.
“I wait three hours in the waiting room,” Hughes-Brown said. “They finally bring me into the inner sanctum, if you will, and that’s where they tell me that they are waiting on paperwork from Wright County,” where her fraud cases had taken place. At this point, it was about 11 p.m., meaning they weren’t going to get any documents until the next morning.
“The next morning, Thursday morning, the paperwork arrived, and I got told I had to go before a judge,” Hughes-Brown said.
Looking down at her paperwork, she spied the date of her hearing: Aug. 13. Nearly two weeks out.
“They couldn’t detain me there,” Hughes-Brown said. So, on Aug. 1, 2025, Hughes-Brown was transported to a processing center in Broadview, Illinois.
The journey to Kentucky
The Broadview Processing Center, located in Chicago’s Broadview suburb, became the site of public outcry last year following the deployment of large numbers of federal agents to Chicago.
A lawsuit filed late last year accused the government of using the facility to perpetuate “mass constitutional violations.” Reporting by the Associated Press, who covered the court hearing where testimony about the facility’s conditions took place, describe the allegations of the suit: denying proper access to food, water and medical care, and coercing people to sign documents they didn’t understand. Without that knowledge, and without private communication with lawyers, people unknowingly relinquished their rights and faced deportation, the lawsuit alleges.
Hughes-Brown spent three days at the Broadview facility in August before learning she was going to be transported to Campbell County. A transport team came to pick her and two other detainees up, she said.
They were handcuffed and put into a paddy wagon, “no windows, no nothing, and it has two sides to it, and each side seats six people,” Hughes-Brown said.
There were seat belts and handhold straps to secure the passengers, Hughes-Brown said.
“There’s a sign right in front of you on the divider that says, ‘please hold on to the straps,'” she said. In spite of this, Hughes-Brown said, “they handcuffed us in front so we couldn’t reach reach the straps that were behind us, and they did not seat belt us in. Therefore, we were literally thrown around the van.”
The driver, Hughes-Brown said, “would punch the gas and slam on the brakes, and so we were constantly being thrown against each other. And in my case, I was closest to the driver’s seat, and I kept getting thrown against the side wall there between the driver and the cargo area.”
The journey took about five and a half hours, Hughes-Brown said. They arrived in Kentucky around 7 p.m. without having eaten.
Then, the booking process began.
“Anytime somebody local got brought in, they would stop in-processing us and would do the new person that came in,” Hughes-Brown said. “So, it took us – took them – four hours to in-process.”
The three of them were placed in a holding cell while processing took place, still not having eaten.
“This holding cell was absolutely horrific,” Hughes-Brown said. “It was full of bugs. There was feces on the wall. There was an awful odor coming from the drain.”
They were given mats to sit on.
After about another hour of waiting, Hughes-Brown said, the three immigration detainees – two of whom spoke English, according to Hughes-Brown – were moved into the general dormitories of the Campbell County Detention Center. Hughes-Brown estimated the entire process, from getting picked up in Broadview to finally moving into the Detention Center’s dorms, took about 12 hours.
At Campbell County Detention Center
Other immigration detainees – about 14, Hughes-Brown estimates – were already there in the pod where Hughes-Brown was placed. One woman, she said, was from England, two were from India and the rest were Latina. They co-mingled with local inmates.
“Some on aggravated assault charges, some on drug charges, some on pay-to- stay, like they didn’t pay fines,” Hughes-Brown said. “They ran the gamut.”
Although Hughes-Brown was critical of her treatment and the treatment of others during her time in Campbell County, she had no illusions about the fact that she was in, well, jail. She used the example of prison food.
“You’re in a jail, OK.” Hughes-Brown said. “It’s not going to be home cuisine; I get it.”
Still, one criticism in particular that stood out in Hughes-Brown’s account were what she saw as inadequate attention to healthcare necessities among the detainees. As someone who works in home healthcare, Hughes-Brown said there were several tendencies she observed and even experienced that didn’t sit right with her.
“I had really high blood pressure going in there, imagine that,” Hughes-Brown said. “I was in there a week and a half before I finally got blood pressure meds; my blood pressure meds that I actually have prescribed to me.”
Another issue she said she observed was an inadequate supply of feminine hygiene products for the female detainees. At one point, she said, as much as a third of the women in her would be without hygiene products, which is disallowed under Kentucky administrative regulations.
When Hughes-Brown spoke out about these and other issues, she said, she was retaliated against.
“I was put in isolation twice,” Hughes-Brown said. “Plus, I had bunk restrictions, mat restrictions, you name it. They tried their damnedest to break me down.”
Her husband, Jim Brown, was trying his best to resolve some of these issues from the outside. In a complaint submitted to the Kentucky Board of Nursing about one of the nurses at the facility, Brown alleges that his wife was denied proper migraine medication.
“She has migraines about once or twice a month,” Brown writes in his complaint, dated Oct. 1, 2025. “Has prescription medication for them but is detained and doesn’t have them [sic] She started a headache over 24 hours ago and asked …[sic] for some medication like tylenol [sic] to help with medications [sic] He refused to give her even tylenol.. [sic] And instead told her to use breathing exercises and drink water. Id [sic] like to know which protocol he got that from.”
Needless to say, Brown is not a fan of the Campbell County Detention Center.
“The first month that this happened, I called and called and called because there was things that were going on that were wrong in the jail,” Brown said. “One of the instances was Donna was forced to eat a pill off the floor for medication. There was toilets that were clogged up for a week at a time. There were five, six people in a pod having to share the same toilet, all kinds of different things, just egregious stuff.”
After about a month and half of calling, Brown said he was finally able to get through to James Daley, the jailer.
“He, point blank, told me that Donna was lying to him, that that couldn’t possibly be in his jail,” Brown said.
Brown works as a CT scan tech. In the months that followed, he said, he made numerous calls to various departments within the commonwealth, including the Attorney General’s office, to get answers. Like Hughes-Brown, he was perturbed by what he characterized as inadequate medical care.
I was put in isolation twice. Plus, I had bunk restrictions, mat restrictions; you name it.”
Donna hughes-brown
“The Department of Corrections called me and finally asked me to ‘Please don’t call the attorney general again.’ I had left 18 voicemails,” Brown said. “Because I it was like, my wife’s in jail. You’re telling me nothing, and then you’re calling me a liar. She’s not getting a proper medical care. That was a big thing with me. I mean, I understand she was in jail, and it’s not going to be the Taj Mahal, but proper medical care, sorry, but that should be not a privilege. It should be a right.”
Aug. 13 finally arrived. No hearing.
“Aug. 15, I was told first thing in the morning, I was told, ‘Get ready, you’re going before the judge,” Hughes-Brown said, for a bond hearing, only for it to be denied.
“The DHS attorney says that I am considered an arriving alien because even though I’m a [legal public resident], my status as a [legal public resident] was stripped because I had committed a crime while I was here in the United States,” Hughes-Brown said. According to Hughes-Brown, the DHS attorneys argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to decide if she was eligible for bond or not. Hughes-Brown’s lawyer later requested another bond hearing, but that request was denied.
The media began to notice Hughes-Brown’s story in early October. After doing an interview with Fox 19, her case gained prominence back in Missouri. With the help of the Irish consulate in Georgia, she said, her lawyer and husband began getting the word out about her case.
She had what she believed to be a final hearing in late October that would determine whether or not she would be deported, but the hearing type was changed at last minute, Hughes-Brown said. She was unsure why.
“Well, the day before that hearing, my lawyer gets a message saying it’s not going to be a final hearing,” Hughes-Brown said. “There was no reason for it. Like, no explanation, no nothing.”
After some back and forth with the judge and the DHS attorney, another hearing was rescheduled out to December. Until then, Hughes-Brown was back in jail.
Meanwhile in Congress
Hughes-Brown credited Seth Magaziner, a Democrat U.S. House representative from Rhode Island, with making her case nationally prominent by bringing her husband to DHS committee hearings in Washington D.C. in November and December. At one committee hearing on Dec. 11, Magaziner questioned DHS Director Kristi Noem about Hughes-Brown’s case.
“What possible explanation can there be for locking up his [Brown’s] wife for four months when she has committed no crime other than writing a couple of bad checks for $80?” Magaziner asked Noem.
“Sir, it is not my prerogative, my latitude or my job to pick and choose which laws in this country get enforced and which ones don’t,” Noem replied.
But, Magaziner challenged, Noem has broad discretion.
“You can issue parole,” Magaziner said. “You can do all kinds of things, but you’re choosing not to.”
When asked if she would review Hughes-Brown’s case, Noem replied, “I will review the case.”
About a week later, Hughes-Brown had her last hearing on Dec. 18. She admitted that didn’t understand all of the ins and outs of the process, but she told LINK nky that it wasn’t clear which way the judge was leaning by the end of the hearing. Two hours later she was released. Given the ambiguity of the hearing, she wasn’t sure what happened, but she was finally out.
When LINK nky spoke with Hughes-Brown, she said she would like to apply for citizenship and go back to work, but she can’t because the federal government has yet to return her passport and residence permit.
“They’re still in Chicago somewhere,” Hughes-Brown said.
Immigration detention in NKY
Criticism against federal immigration agencies has increased over the past month or so, especially in the wake of the killing of two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by ICE agents in Minnesota. In Northern Kentucky, people have come out to all three county fiscal courts to express concern about local institutional cooperation with ICE. One speaker in Campbell County recently characterized ICE as a “vigilante force” with which local governments shouldn’t contract.
LINK nky interviewed two of the county jailers, as well as some lower-ranked staff at the county detention centers, prior to the publication of this story, and toured two of the detention centers: Boone County and Campbell County. Jailer Daley invited LINK nky to tour the jail but declined to be interviewed. However, he recently spoke publicly before Campbell County Fiscal Court to address residents’ concerns about the jail’s relations with ICE. All three jails in Northern Kentucky house immigration detainees.
The tours were admittedly brief, but officials at the jails all expressed a commitment to professionalism and respect toward the inmates.
“The one thing that we preach and we expect and we demand from our employees,” Kenton County Jailer Marc Fields said to LINK nky, is “that everybody’s treated the same. I don’t care what you’re there for… They’re being treated just like every other inmate, and we will continue to do that.”
Boone County Jailer Jason Maydak said that while people think detainees are treated poorly when they are incarcerated, it is actually the exact opposite.
“That’s why I allowed you to walk through there,” Maydak said.
LINK nky did not witness any mistreatment of inmates during our tours.
Unlike Boone County, Campbell County did not allow LINK nky to take photos of the jail’s interior. The Campbell County Detention Center is split into different sections, which were built at different times. It shows: Maj. Ryan Grosser, who guided LINK on the tour, described how various parts of the center had been repurposed for different uses throughout the building’s history. Pods varied in size and inmate amenities, depending on the type of prisoner they housed and their age.
The areas in the Boone County Detention Center that LINK nky observed were comparatively more uniform. Camera feeds of prisoners’ areas were displayed on screens in Maydak’s office.
People feel like these detainees are treated poorly when they’re incarcerated, and it’s the exact opposite. That’s why I allowed you to walk through there.”
Boone County jailer jason maydak
LINK nky wasn’t allowed to speak with the inmates during the tours, either. However, we did interview via teleconference another immigration detainee, Beata Siemionkowicz, who had been transported from Illinois to Campbell County with Hughes-Brown.
Siemionkowicz is Polish and first came to the United States in 1995. She got her green card in 2003 and was detained by ICE in Illinois in August, per DHS documents her family shared with LINK nky.
Siemionkowicz has two petty theft charges in the States, and DHS argued in her removal order that she had a record back in Poland. Siemionkowicz’s family shared a stamped affidavit from the Polish government stating she didn’t have a criminal record in Poland, as of Feb. 25, 2025, challenging the DHS’ account.
“I lost everything,” Siemionkowicz, who had built a whole life in Illinois, told LINK nky.
Siemionkowicz reiterated some of the criticisms about health and cleanliness at Campbell County that Hughes-Brown had expressed. She was ordered to be deported on Dec. 8, but she has time to appeal the order. She is still in the Campbell County Detention Center.
Grosser, like the other officials who spoke with LINK nky, seemed to take his role of keeping the inmates safe seriously. As an aside, Hughes-Brown, even though she was critical of Jailer Daley, was complimentary of her interactions with Grosser.
LINK nky inquired after some of the health concerns Hughes-Brown expressed with Grosser during our tour. The jail did not, Grosser argued, have issues with mold or other pathogens. He even took care of ordering supplies for feminine hygiene products himself, he said, although he did say that inmates would sometimes repurpose feminine pads for other uses, which could lead to dwindling supplies.
Invoice records from the detention centers indicate the centers make $88 per day per detainee, not including transportation and other reimbursements. This is a considerably higher rate than what they get for housing state detainees.
LINK nky made several records requests to the jails in an effort to get a handle on the volume of immigration detainees that move through Northern Kentucky.
Kenton County has been housing immigration detainees for the shortest amount of time of the three detention centers. Invoice records to the federal government indicate the Kenton County Detention Center invoiced anywhere from $41,272 in May (shortly after immigration detention began there) to $271,392 for housing immigration detainees, as of the end of October. There were 157 immigration detainees in Kenton County as of the end of October, according to invoice records.
Campbell County denied a direct request for information on immigration detainees but honored a request for invoice records. Records indicate the detention center would invoice the federal government as much as $112,000 a month in 2025.
Boone County was the most forthright in its responses to our records requests. One response was a 254-page document detailing not only immigration detainees’ names but also their nationalities, booking dates and release dates. Between Jan. 1, 2020 and Dec. 2, 2025, Boone County Detention Center housed 6,343 ICE detainees. Most of them, roughly 98%, were men. A monthly invoice in 2025 from Boone County could reach as high as $574,000.
Eight county facilities in Kentucky hold ICE detainees.
It’s worth noting that the local detention centers do not have direct roles in immigration arrests. Many local ICE detainees come from other federal facilities, such as the one in Brookville.
That being said, ICE agents are present in Northern Kentucky. Sources in the community have informed LINK nky of raids and arrests throughout the region. In March of last year, the City of Covington even released a statement denying involvement in federal arrests after videos of agents began circulating on social media.
Following the passage of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill in July, ICE is now one of the most well-funded federal enforcement agencies in the county, with nearly $78 billion at its disposal.
Given all of this, one wonders how many more people are stuck in the machine?
“It has got to stop,” she said.
This story originally appeared at linknky.com.
This article appears in immigration and Donna Hughes-Brown.