Immigration activist Alma Bowman (sitting in wheelchair) poses with supporters outside the Atlanta ICE field office in March. Community members were holding signs with Bowman’s name and calling for the end of mass deportation policies. Photo courtesy of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta.
A Macon activist who helped call attention to conditions at a federal immigration detention center in south Georgia in 2020 has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since March, despite her claims that she is a U.S. citizen.
Alma Bowman, 58, was detained by ICE during a routine check-in and is being held by immigration authorities for the second time in what her lawyers say appears to be retaliation for her efforts to advocate for herself and other immigrant women.
Now, her lawyers are filing a complaint against state and federal immigration authorities, arguing that Bowman’s detention violates her constitutional rights and calling for her release.
Dispute over citizenship
Bowman was born in the Philippines to a Filipina mother and an American father, who was serving in the U.S. Navy at the time of her birth. Her parents later married, and brought her to the U.S. when she was 10 years old. Under the immigration laws that were in place at the time, Bowman’s lawyers say, this should make her a citizen.
But the U.S. government has refused to recognize her as such, citing a 1977 letter sent to Bowman’s mother from the U.S. Embassy in Manila casting doubt on whether her father was biologically related to her.
According to Bowman’s lawyers, it’s not uncommon for foreign-born children of U.S. service members to face roadblocks to having their citizenship recognized.
“There was a common practice in the mid-1900s, when the U.S. was involved in all of these wars in other places, of trying to deny the citizenship of the children that were born from American military men going abroad,” said Kayla Vinson, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who is representing Bowman. “The laws of the time made those children citizens, and the U.S. military and the U.S. government have a practice of trying to deny the existence of those children and the U.S. citizenship claims of those children.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may also face logistical roadblocks as they seek to deport Bowman. In July, the Philippine government told ICE that it was unable to issue travel documents for Bowman, according to the complaint, “because under Philippine law in effect at the time of Ms. Bowman’s birth, her citizenship would follow that of her father—an American.”
It’s unclear whether new policies allowing the Trump administration to deport immigrants to third-party countries will play a role in Bowman’s case.
For most of Bowman’s life, she believed she was a U.S. citizen, according to her attorneys. But in 2013, she was convicted for writing bad checks amounting to roughly $1,200, according to reporting from the Macon Telegraph. She also pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and one count of possession of methamphetamine, and learned that her immigration status — according to the U.S. government — was one of a lawful permanent resident, not a citizen.
She was transferred into federal immigration authorities’ custody in 2017, where she remained for the next three years, until her release in 2020.
ICE detention
Up until March 2025, when Bowman was detained by immigration authorities for a second time, check-ins at the federal agency’s Atlanta Field Office had been a matter of routine.
Bowman had been required to attend check-ins at the field office every three months as a condition of her release in 2020. Eventually, the check-ins were reduced to an annual visit to the Atlanta field office.
But President Donald Trump’s push to increase the number of people arrested to 3,000 per day has resulted in immigration agents pursuing new tactics.
“We started hearing reports in January of this year that people were, in fact, being detained at their check-ins,” said Samantha Hamilton, a staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta who is representing Bowman.
In March, Bowman attended her check-in accompanied by family members and her lawyer, Hamilton, as a precaution. Supporters rallied outside the entrance, holding signs with her name and calling for the end of mass deportation policies.
But during the check-in, authorities quickly separated Bowman from her lawyer and family, transporting her to a detention facility in south Georgia.
“They said that they were going to take Alma to a separate room to get fingerprinted,” Hamilton said. “But what she says happened was that they immediately took her out of that waiting room, into the elevator and downstairs onto an SUV, where they promptly drove her to the Stewart Detention Center.”
The circumstances surrounding Bowman’s arrest indicate “that the decision to detain her had been made before she even arrived that day, and suggest that she was targeted, likely in part because of her advocacy work,” Vinson added.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to a request for comment.
During Bowman’s previous ICE detention, she was held at the now-defunct Irwin County Detention Center, which ended its partnership with federal immigration authorities in 2021. She was also one of the women who came forward to report allegations of medical abuse they said they experienced at the hands of a doctor at the facility.
In the years since her initial release from ICE custody, she has advocated for Congress to pass the Equal Citizenship for Children Act, which would have made it easier for children of U.S.-citizen fathers to be recognized as citizens.
Now, as she once again sits in detention at a facility with a long history of misconduct allegations, she is working to help connect her fellow detainees with resources and support, even as her lawyers say she is routinely denied necessary medication prescribed for her diabetic neuropathy.
“The fact that she is continuing to do that work in the face of such restrictive repression in these dire conditions that she finds herself in is truly remarkable,” Hamilton said.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
This post was originally authored and published by Maya Homan from Georgia Recorder via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
