Wihongi\u2019s family<\/a> had already spoken to her, and she was \u201cover the moon\u201d. <\/p>\nChristopher said that when she is released, ICE would \u201cbasically open the doors\u201d at the Arizona facility, leaving her to arrange her own transportation back to her home in Wisconsin. Christopher said he and Wihongi\u2019s family would be working to help with this process. <\/p>\n
Christopher said the process of being moved across the country had been \u201cvery stressful\u201d for her family. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot to mention what she has to go through in the facilities that she\u2019s located in.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the recent development felt like vindication for the case. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn one sense, we\u2019re very happy she\u2019s being released. We\u2019re very happy we were able to vacate her conviction.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he was \u201cfrustrated that it has to take this long\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe sat there in immigration custody, in this terrible facility for the last 70 days.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the amount of time it took for her to be released was \u201cindicative of what\u2019s happening in the United States right now\u201d. <\/p>\n
Since US President Donald Trump was re-elected, there has been a huge increase in immigration enforcement in the country. Crackdowns in California and Minnesota, where agents patrolled the streets and interrogated residents, sparked huge protests and local resistance to impede their efforts. <\/p>\n
Christopher said that while authorities were detaining record numbers of people, \u201cthey don\u2019t have the mechanism in place to run them through the system\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have the place to put the people.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople get lost in the mix.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New Zealand woman detained by immigration authorities in the US is set to be released in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,917,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-484588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-immigration","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Everlee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/everlee-wihongi-in-an-ice-detention-centre-in-california-aft-Q2I5E6WKLRECTC2I6A3YBLN5HI.jpg\")
<\/p>\n