LET U.S. CITIZEN ALMA STAY

Alma Bowman is a 54-year-old woman set to be deported to the Philippines, a country she has not been in for more than 40 years - even though she is a U.S. citizen. She has lived in the U.S. since the age of ten when she came to the US in 1977, having acquired citizenship from her US citizen father. She also has two U.S. citizen children living in Georgia. Further, Ms. Bowman was one of the women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Georgia who provided crucial information in the whistleblower complaint filed by Project South, GLAHR, South GA Immigrant Support Network and Georgia Detention Watch. The report led to an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security. Alma is a key witness to the abuse that has taken place at ICDC, and would like to stay in the US and share what she knows with federal investigators.

Instead of acknowledging her US citizenship and the information she has to contribute to the ongoing investigation at ICDC, Ms. Bowman has been transferred thousands of miles away to Arizona, where she is awaiting deportation. Since August of 2017, Ms. Bowman has represented herself before ICE on her own; and without legal representation, she did not know that she is, in fact, a U.S. citizen. As soon as she found out she was a U.S. citizen, Alma filed a request to stop her deportation, submitting documents as proof of her claim - and still, ICE denied her request and is committed to deporting her.

Ms. Bowman now has an attorney helping her and she needs time in the US to reopen her case and get the Court to terminate proceedings against her. As a U.S. citizen, she is not subjected to deportation. We ask ICE to reverse its decision and hold her deportation at this time, in order for Ms. Bowman to reopen her case and participate in the ongoing OIG investigation.

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