ICE detainee Everlee Wihongi being moved to another state

Everlee Wihongi was detained when re-entering the US on a Green Card a month ago, following a family holiday in New Zealand.

By Charlie Dreaver of RNZ

The mother of a New Zealander being held in ICE custody in the United States says she does not know where her daughter will end up, after she was taken to a different state.

Everlee Wihongi was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when re-entering the US on a Green Card a month ago, following a family holiday in New Zealand.

Her mother, Betty Wihongi, was in Wisconsin and said Everlee was told she was being removed from a centre in California on Friday at midnight local time.

On Saturday morning, she had missed a scheduled meeting with her lawyer.

“They [ICE] never contacted our lawyer, so he was waiting for her on a Zoom call and she never showed up,” she said.

The online ICE detainee locator system said that Everlee was in “Camp East Montana”, Texas, a camp where an average of about 3000 people per day live.

Detainees had described the camp to CNN as loud and unsanitary, where diseases spread easily and sleep was a luxury.

But then, as journalist David Farrier reported, Everlee disappeared from the detainee locator system.

On Monday night, Betty received information that her daughter was being held at an airport in Arizona.

“She doesn’t know how long she’ll be there, they told her not to get comfortable that she will be moved, but they don’t know where it going to be,” she said.

The whānau pictured in New Zealand. Photo / Supplied

Betty said that because Everlee had moved to another jurisdiction, she would have to restart the process to have her case heard in court.

“So every time you are moved, your court appearances, everything that you had before disappears and you start at the bottom again.”

Betty said their lawyer had been seeing more and more cases of ICE moving detainees to make it difficult for lawyers to get hold of them and to set court appearances.

She said it was taking a toll on Everlee, who was usually a happy and outgoing person.

“Just the moving around, the facilities, the guards, just everyone, it’s just their job to make your life miserable and hard.

“I think her greatest fear is that we don’t know where she is, that we won’t be able to locate her or find her and she’s going to be lost in all this.”

The family were once again calling on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to do more to help.

“Reaching out to the US government [asking] what’s going on with the detainee? Why are you moving her around so much, why can’t she have her day in court?

“We don’t want them to provide funding for us, that’s something we’re taking care of. We don’t want them to give us a free ride for anything else.”

When contacted by RNZ, MFAT repeated its statement that the Government was “unable to influence the immigration decisions of other governments”.

“The Ministry continues to provide consular assistance to the family of a New Zealander detained in Los Angeles. Consular officials are in regular contact with the individual and their family,” a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said MFAT was unable to comment on the details of any individual case and Peters’ office referred RNZ to the ministry for comment.

As of this month, MFAT said it was aware of two New Zealand citizens in immigration detention in the United States.