An activist who helped attention to the conditions in a federal immigration authority in South Georgia in 2020 has been in the care of the US immigration and customs authority since March, although she claims that she is a US citizen.
The 58-year-old Alma Bowman was arrested by ICE during a routine check-in and is for the second time by immigration authorities in what her lawyers say that retaliation for her efforts to work for herself and other migrants.
Now your lawyers make a complaint against state and federal immigration authorities and argue that Bowman's detention violates their constitutional rights and demands their release.
Dispute over citizenship
Bowman was born in the Philippines as the son of a Filipino mother and an American father who served in the US Marine at the time of birth. Her parents later married and brought them to the USA when she was 10 years old. After the immigration laws applicable at this time, Bowman lawyers say, they should make them a citizen.
But the US government has refused to recognize it as such and quoted a letter from 1977 to Bowman's mother from the US message in Manila, in which they have doubts as to whether their father was biologically related to her.
According to Bowman's lawyers, it is not unusual for roadblocks born abroad to compete abroad so that their citizenship is recognized.
“In the mid -1900s there was a common practice when the USA were involved in all these wars in other places to refuse the citizenship of the children who were born by American military men who went abroad,” said Kayla Vinson, a lawyer in the center for constitutional rights that Bowman represents. “The laws of time have made these children citizens, and the US military and the US government have the practice, the existence of these children and the US citizenship of these children.”
US immigration and customs authorities can also be exposed to logistical roadblocks if you want to deport Bowman. In July, the Filipino government announced ICE that she could not issue travel documents for Bowman, “because of the Filipino law at the time the birth of Ms. Bowman would follow her father's birth – an American.”
It is unclear whether new guidelines that enable the Trump government to deport immigrants to third-party countries will play a role in Bowman's case.
During the largest part of Bowman's life, she believed that she was a US citizen, according to her lawyers. In 2013, according to reports from the Macon Telegraph, she was condemned to write bad checks of around 1,200 US dollars. She also owed three cases of possession of a firearm by a convicted criminal and a number of possession of methamphetamine and learned that her immigration status – according to the US government – was one of a legitimate constant resident, not of a citizen.
It was transferred to the federal immigration authorities in 2017, where it remained in 2020 in 2020 in the next three years.
Icing
Until March 2025, when Bowman was arrested by immigration authorities a second time, the check-in in the Federal Agency in Atlanta had been a question of routine.
Bowman had to participate every three months as a condition for her release in 2020 in the Field Office in the Field Office. Finally, the check-ins were reduced to an annual visit to the outdoor dance in Atlanta.
President Donald Trump's advance of increasing the number of people to 3,000 a day has led to immigration agents pursuing new tactics.
“We started hearing in January of this year to hear that people were actually arrested at their checks,” said Samantha Hamilton, a lawyer of the Asian Americans who represented the judiciary to promote Bowman.
As a precaution, Bowman took part in her check-in, accompanied by family members and her lawyer Hamilton. The followers gathered in front of the entrance, kept signs with their name and demanded the end of mass deportation policy.
During the check-in, the authorities quickly separated Bowman from their lawyer and family and transported them to a prison in South Georgia.
“They said they would bring Alma to a separate room to get fingerprint,” said Hamilton. “But what she says has happened that she immediately brought her out of this waiting room, into the elevator and the stairs down to an SUV, where you immediately drove it to the Stewart detection center.”
The circumstances in relation to Bowman's arrest indicate that “the decision to hold it up was made before it arrived on that day, and indicates that it was targeted, probably partly because of her legal work,” added Vinson.
The US immigration and customs authority did not respond to a request for comments.
During Bowman's earlier icy liability, she was held in the now no longer existing internment camp in Irwin County, which ended his partnership with the federal immigration authorities in 2021. She was also one of the women who reported to report allegations of medical abuse they experienced by a doctor in the facility.
In the years since her first release from ICE, she has campaigned for the congress to have passed the law on the same law on the same law on citizenship for children, which would have made it easier for children to be recognized by the fathers of the US citizen.
Now that she is once again in a facility with a long history of accusations of misconduct, she is working to connect her fellow inmates with resources and support, even if her lawyers say that the necessary medication that is required for her diabetic neuropathy is regularly refused.
“The fact that you continue to do this work in view of such restrictive oppression under these poor conditions in which it is in it is really remarkable,” said Hamilton.
Read more at Georgiareecorder.com.
The Stewart Detention Center, a private prison, which is carried out by Corecivic under contract with the US immigration and customs authority, can be seen on July 29, 2025 near Lumpkin, GA. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart).
