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Delaware County nurse says ICE ankle monitor hinders her work after release from detention
Monica Ryadi, a registered nurse at Riddle Hospital, was detained for two weeks after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport for a family trip. A judge ordered her release, but she remains under ICE monitoring and fears deportation to a country other than Indonesia.
Monica Ryadi, a 30-year-old registered nurse at Riddle Hospital in Middletown Township, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for two weeks after she and her family arrived at Los Angeles International Airport for a Disneyland trip. A judge ordered her released Sept. 29, but she says she remains afraid of being detained again or deported to a third country.
Ryadi has been required to wear an ankle monitor since her release. Her lawyer, Eric Rosenfeld, said the device interferes with her work caring for cardiac patients at the Main Line Health hospital, including her ability to perform CPR properly and work close to MRI equipment.
Ryadi and her husband, a U.S. citizen, were traveling with their 3-year-old son when she was arrested at the airport. She had spent the next two weeks at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California before a court order secured her release.
At a news conference outside ICE’s Philadelphia field office Thursday, Ryadi said detention left her feeling stripped of control and dignity. She said officers told her she might be sent to a third country but did not identify one, and that she received little information while in custody.
Ryadi’s family came to the United States from Indonesia in 2005, when she was 9, on visas and later applied for asylum, according to her court petition. An immigration judge denied the asylum application in 2010 but granted withholding of removal. That protection bars deportation to Indonesia, but does not necessarily prevent the government from sending someone to another country that will accept them.
Rosenfeld and supporters, including U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Delaware County Democrat, accompanied Ryadi to a required ICE check-in Thursday. Rosenfeld said ICE had sent conflicting instructions about where she should report and had not answered his request for clarification. He said he hoped the check-in would lead to removal of her ankle monitor; the available information did not establish whether that happened.
Scanlon criticized the administration’s immigration enforcement approach, saying officials were misrepresenting whom ICE is detaining and why. Rosenfeld also argued that Ryadi’s case contradicts claims that enforcement is focused on people with serious criminal records.
Ryadi’s case highlights the uncertainty faced by people with withholding-of-removal protection: they may remain in the United States for years, but can still face detention and the possibility of removal to a third country. Ryadi said she fears that possibility even after returning to her family and her nursing job.