After a College of Washington lab technician and inexperienced card holder was just lately detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, her household is talking out.
Lewelyn Dixon, 64, who’s had authorized everlasting standing within the U.S. for 50 years, was arrested on the airport in Seattle and positioned into ICE custody after getting back from a visit to her native Philippines in late February. She has a listening to scheduled for July, however her family members are calling for her launch, telling NBC Information that she is the glue that holds the household collectively.
“She’s all the time been our go-to,” stated Dixon’s niece Lani Madriaga, who described her as a mom determine. “She’s all the time been that.”
ICE didn’t instantly reply to NBC Information’ request for remark.
Dixon is being held on the Northwest ICE Processing Heart in Tacoma, Washington, Madriaga stated, the place she’s been socializing with the opposite detainees, translating and serving to them talk with their attorneys amid the wait earlier than her listening to.
Dixon’s lawyer, Benjamin Osorio, stated that U.S. Customs and Border Safety doubtless noticed a decades-old embezzlement conviction on her report upon her return, which prompted the detention. Dixon, who pleaded responsible to the nonviolent offense in 2000, was ordered to pay restitution and spend 30 days in a midway home, court docket paperwork present. In 2019, she completed paying restitution.
Dixon had been a vault teller and operations supervisor at Washington Mutual Financial institution, the place she “eliminated money from the vault on eight separate events” with out the financial institution’s authorization, based on her plea settlement. In complete, she eliminated $6,460.
Dixon by no means instructed the household in regards to the conviction, Madriaga stated, who referred to as it her aunt’s “darkest secret.”
“If she hadn’t traveled, it wouldn’t have triggered this,” Osorio stated.
And although Dixon has additionally lengthy been eligible for U.S. citizenship, Osorio stated, she promised her father that she would preserve her Filipino standing in order that she may retain property and land again within the Philippines.
“She in all probability didn’t perceive the danger,” Osorio stated. “In any other case, she in all probability would have … naturalized earlier than she traveled.”
Lewelyn Dixon.
Dixon got here to the U.S. when she was 14, instantly serving to Madriaga and her siblings, who’re additionally immigrants, settle into life of their new nation.
“We stayed collectively. We slept in the identical room. We had a bunk mattress and an additional mattress, and we stayed in that room throughout our faculty years,” Madriaga, 59, stated. “She was very unbiased, and she or he was a superb position mannequin, ensuring to have hard-earned work.”
Afterward, when Madriaga’s sister went by a divorce, changing into a single mother, Dixon moved to Washington state so she might be there for the youngsters and to pitch in with hire. Madriaga went by her personal divorce years later and stated Dixon was additionally there to assist with the youngsters.
“That was exhausting. She made certain she took care of my youngest one, as a result of she was nonetheless a minor,” Madriaga stated. “She’s like a second mother to her.”
On the lab, Dixon is a devoted employee, Madriaga stated. She had even scheduled herself to work a shift the evening she was to get off the flight, she added. Dixon was on the cusp of her 10-year anniversary at work, throughout which her pension would vest. Her members of the family are actually nervous she’ll lose each her job and her pension after being away for therefore lengthy.
Susan Gregg, a spokesperson at UW Drugs, wouldn’t elaborate on Dixon’s case, however stated that she had labored as a lab technician on the hospital since 2015.
“UW Drugs is devoted to the well-being of all staff and hopes Lewelyn receives due course of in a well timed method,” Gregg stated.
Madriaga stated that the household is talking out for his or her aunt and in addition hoping to assist others shield themselves from an analogous destiny.
“To the individuals who averted changing into a citizen like my aunt, who thought that she was protected: No. Go get your citizenship,” Madriaga stated.
This text was initially printed on NBCNews.com