Family calls for release of woman legally in U.S. for 50 years and now detained by ICE

After a University of Washington lab technician and green card holder was recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, her family is speaking out.

Lewelyn Dixon, 64, who’s had legal permanent status in the U.S. for 50 years, was arrested at the airport in Seattle and placed into ICE custody after coming back from a trip to her native Philippines in late February. She has a hearing scheduled for July, but her loved ones are calling for her release, telling NBC News that she is the glue that holds the family together.

“She’s always been our go-to,” said Dixon’s niece Lani Madriaga, who described her as a mother figure. “She’s always been that.”

ICE did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Dixon is being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, Madriaga said, where she’s been socializing with the other detainees, translating and helping them communicate with their attorneys amid the wait before her hearing.

Dixon’s attorney, Benjamin Osorio, said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection likely spotted a decades-old embezzlement conviction on her record upon her return, which prompted the detention. Dixon, who pleaded guilty to the nonviolent offense in 2000, was ordered to pay restitution and spend 30 days in a halfway house, court documents show. In 2019, she finished paying restitution.

Dixon had been a vault teller and operations supervisor at Washington Mutual Bank, where she “removed cash from the vault on eight separate occasions” without the bank’s authorization, according to her plea agreement. In total, she removed $6,460.

Dixon never told the family about the conviction, Madriaga said, who called it her aunt’s “darkest secret.”

“If she hadn’t traveled, it wouldn’t have triggered this,” Osorio said.

And though Dixon has also long been eligible for U.S. citizenship, Osorio said, she promised her father that she would keep her Filipino status so that she could retain property and land back in the Philippines.

“She probably did not understand the risk,” Osorio said. “Otherwise, she probably would have … naturalized before she traveled.”

Dixon came to the U.S. when she was 14, immediately helping Madriaga and her siblings, who are also immigrants, settle into life in their new country.

“We stayed together. We slept in the same room. We had a bunk bed and an extra bed, and we stayed in that room during our school years,” Madriaga, 59, said. “She was very independent, and she was a good role model, making sure to have hard earned work.”

Later on, when Madriaga’s sister went through a divorce, becoming a single mom, Dixon moved to Washington state so she could be there for the children and to pitch in with rent. Madriaga went through her own divorce years later and said Dixon was also there to help with the kids.

“That was hard. She made sure she took care of my youngest one, because she was still a minor,” Madriaga said. “She’s like a second mom to her.”

At the lab, Dixon is a dedicated worker, Madriaga said. She had even scheduled herself to work a shift the night she was to get off the flight, she added. Dixon was on the cusp of her 10-year anniversary at work, during which her pension would vest. Her family members are now worried she’ll lose both her job and her pension after being away for so long.

Susan Gregg, a spokesperson at UW Medicine, would not elaborate on Dixon’s case, but said that she had worked as a lab technician at the hospital since 2015.

“UW Medicine is dedicated to the well-being of all employees and hopes Lewelyn receives due process in a timely manner,” Gregg said.

Madriaga said that the family is speaking out for their aunt and also hoping to help others protect themselves from a similar fate.

“To the people who avoided becoming a citizen like my aunt, who thought that she was protected: No. Go get your citizenship,” Madriaga said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com