A Noncitizen Says She Was Told She Could Vote. Then Customs Detained Her at the Airport and Threatened to Deport Her.

ProPublica reports that a 57-year-old permanent resident from Kansas was detained for 30 hours at Detroit airport in March 2025 and placed in removal proceedings after acknowledging to customs officers that she had voted once in a local 2023 election, despite not being a U.S. citizen. She claimed a state motor vehicles employee had told her she was eligible to vote when renewing her driver's license. The reporting is substantive and well-sourced: the article includes a transcript of her customs interview, her attorney's account, confirmed statements from CBP and a Biden-era DHS official, Douglas County voting records, and expert commentary from the Brennan Center for Justice. The piece places this incident within Trump administration policy—citing a March 2025 executive order directing federal agencies to prosecute noncitizen voting, the error-prone SAVE tool flagging 24,000 potential noncitizen voters, and historical context that CBP has never before targeted voting violations at ports of entry. Independent search results corroborate broader Trump administration detention practices, including mandatory detention policies being struck down by federal appeals courts and ICE-police collaboration expanding detention scope. Watch for whether Estelle faces criminal charges (unclear at publication), whether CBP is systematically questioning travelers about voting history, and how the 24,000 flagged voters are processed given the SAVE tool's documented error rate.