A 25-year-old woman walked free after two months trapped in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody after a Trump loyalist did an about-face and demanded her release.
Sen. John Kennedy, a far-right Louisiana Republican who has long supported Trump’s mass deportation campaign, seemingly chose to make an exception for young Paola Clouatre and call for her freedom, The New York Times reported. He did not say why.
Kennedy’s strange reversal on immigration policies comes as President Donald Trump’s base begins to fracture on several issues including tariffs, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and the president’s relationship to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Kennedy’s office requested that the Department of Homeland Security release Clouatre after an immigration judge halted her deportation order. The senator had previously sworn that everyone in the country illegally is a “criminal” and that people who oppose deportations are “not being intellectually honest.”
Clouatre, who is married to a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, was detained by ICE on May 27 when she was at a routine appointment about her application for a green card and permanent resident status.
She first came to the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager seeking asylum with her mother and brother. Her family got the green light to temporarily stay in the country, but in 2018, her mom failed to show up for a California court hearing and a judge issued a deportation order against Clouatre. But Clouatre, who was estranged from her mother at that time, was not informed about the order.
In fact, she didn’t even realize there was a deportation order against her until this year, when she was already in the process of applying for a green card.
Clouatre believed that the green card would secure her life in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with her husband, Adrian, three-month-old daughter Lyn and nearly two-year-old son Noah. During the process, however, she was ripped from her family and left unable to breastfeed her infant daughter or care for her toddler, reported NBC.
“I was feeling bad,” she said. “I was feeling like I failed my kids.”
Despite his assistance in Clouatre’s case, Kennedy has spent the last several months celebrating ICE agents nationwide.
“If you’re in our country illegally, you’re a criminal,” he said during a July 17 Fox News interview. “Illegal immigration is illegal. duh.”
He also slammed a federal judge in Massachusetts for halting the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke the legal status and work permits of half a million people who came to the U.S. legally from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
“The judge is wrong,” Kennedy said during the interview. “He or she obviously doesn’t know a law book from a J.Crew catalog.”
Kennedy added that there are “plenty of laws” facilitating deportations that former President Joe Biden “ignored.”
“To me, it’s just straight forward. and people who oppose that approach, it seems to me, are not being intellectually honest,” he said. “They just ought to go ahead and admit they support open borders.”
Christy Tate, the constituent services representative in Kennedy’s office, said that ICE told her it “continues to determinations on a case-by-case basis based on the specific circumstances of each case” but received information about Clouatre from Kennedy’s office “for consideration.”
The next day, Clouatre was released from custody.
The family’s attorney, Carey Holliday, said that Kennedy’s office proved “instrumental” in engaging with DHS, as did mounting awareness about the veteran and his wife’s plights.
“This is someone who honorably served his country, was honorably discharged, and now the government wants to take his wife away,” she said about Adrian Clouatre. “It’s not a good look.”
But DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast that “members of Congress have no sway on who ICE arrests, detains, or places in immigration proceedings.”
“DHS enforces the law. Period,” she said, adding, “The immigration judge granted the motion, and she was released from ICE custody while her immigration proceedings continue.”
Yet Kennedy’s representative Tate rushed to congratulate Clouatre’s family following her release. “I am so happy for you and your family,” she wrote in an email to Adrian Clouatre. “We will continue to keep you, your family and others that are experiencing the same issues in our prayers.”
She added: “God is truly great!” and told them to reach out if they need future assistance.
Adrian said he wished the agency would “actually look at the circumstances” before detaining people.
“It shouldn’t just be like a blanket ‘Oh, they’re illegal, throw them in ICE detention,’” he said.
DHS spokesperson McLaughlin said that the U.S. is “offering illegal aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now.”
“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live American dream,” she said in an email. “If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Kennedy’s office for comment.
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