BOWLING GREEN, Mo. – A Missouri veteran says his wife is being unfairly targeted for deportation. 

She’s lived in the U.S. legally since childhood, but after a trip overseas, she was arrested at the airport and locked up in a Kentucky jail.

“She’s held  so many other people; now she stuck  jail for a 25-dollar check,” said Jim Brown, the husband of Donna Hughes-Brown. “It’s just crazy to think that  you are going to take a woman who has  spent her entire life having children and grandchildren.”

On their nine-acre farm in Missouri, veteran Jim tends to the horses and says every day feels longer without his wife by his side. What started as a routine trip home from Ireland this summer ended in heartbreak at O’Hare Airport.

“We passed U.S. Customs and they said, ‘You are free to go,’ then they apprehended my wife off the plane in Chicago,” Brown said. “They told me that she was going to have to do some paperwork and then be on a flight but the next morning I got a call from Customs saying they said she was coming back but then it ended up being an apprehension.”

Donna Hughes-Brown has lived in the U.S. legally since she was a child, is a legal permanent resident, and worked for years as a health care provider. 

But under a newly enacted law, permanent residents with even minor infractions on their record can be detained and face possible deportation.

Donna’s next hearing is scheduled for later this month. While her lawyer appeals for her release, Jim is working to clear her record and rally support from the community. 

FOX 2 reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other elected officials for a comment but has not heard back in time for publication.