Madeliene's mother held a legal status called "withholding of removal," which permitted her to work legally and travel, after the government had been barred from deporting her to her home country. ICE detained her with plans to send her to a third country she had no connection to. A day after Madeliene spoke to reporters outside 26 Federal Plaza about her mother's detention, a federal judge ordered her release, and Madeliene reunited with her mother at the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in New Jersey ten days after her arrest.