Dutch man living in the U.S. for 40 years facing deportation over 1997 drug conviction

A 44-year-old Dutch man with permanent residency in the United States was arrested in Chicago last week, with officials saying he was due to be deported over two drug-related convictions dating back nearly three decades ago. Owen Romann Ramsingh was taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol officers at O’Hare Airport on September 27 after a three-week trip to visit family in the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed to media outlets.

“His criminal history includes convictions for cocaine possession and marijuana possession,” said a department spokesperson in a statement. She confirmed he was transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility “pending removal proceedings.”

But Ramsingh’s only conviction on record is for a 1998 charge related to cocaine possession when he was a teenaged boy in Nebraska, reported ABC 17 in Columbia, Missouri. The arrest took place when he was 17, and he pleaded guilty. The teen “was tried as an adult and found guilty. It was another devastating example of the system failing him: a child, living on the streets, with no representation, no guidance, and no support—pushed through the system and jailed with adults,” a family friend wrote on a Facebook page built to raise awareness about the case.

“We did not know he had been tried as an adult, nor did we know this would ever resurface. It has never affected any of his past green card renewals,” said Samantha Gage Bryan. Ramsingh was also ticketed for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana in Nebraska, and paid a 100-dollar fine in 2000, according to the broadcaster.

At that time, the marijuana charge was considered to be a minor civil infraction for first-time offenders, and was not commonly prosecuted as a misdemeanor. Though he was again convicted on a 2011 charge for marijuana possession in Boone County, Missouri, that guilty verdict was expunged, Diane Ramsingh told ABC 17. Boone County also includes Columbia, where the Ramsingh’s live with their children.

Ramsingh was born in the Netherlands but has lived in the U.S. since he was five years old, when his mother brought him to the country, while cutting off all contact between the boy and his father in the Netherlands. In 1986, he was given a green card, or Permanent Residency Card, which usually has validity for ten years. It was the arrest in Nebraska that led to a reconnection with his father, and the two have remained close ever since, his family stated.

Diane Ramsingh, confirmed in several interviews and social media posts that her husband did not let his immigration status lapse. The family shared documents with KBIA showing that Ramsingh applied to renew his green card before it expired in March. Because he filed on time, his permanent resident status qualified for an automatic 36-month extension, they said.

Government records confirm his application was received and that he was allowed to continue working and traveling while the new card was being processed, the radio broadcaster reported. With his renewal secured, Ramsingh confidently traveled to Europe with his friend, Robert Olson, on September 2, though the latter returned a week earlier.

Aside from spending time in Amsterdam, they also visited locations in Limburg, and Antwerp, Belgium. “It was the trip of a lifetime! It is really sad that the amazing time we had will be overshadowed and forgotten, and that his current situation will be what we remember,” Olson wrote on social media.

He was held at a location in Broadview, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago for a total of 80 hours. Ramsingh is currently being held in a detention center in El Paso, Texas, pending a court hearing in Illinois in two weeks, according to the ICE website. However, the website also cautioned that some information has not been updated, as a political stalemate in Washington, D.C. led to the shutdown of the federal government, cutting off funding for many services.

Ramsingh has been able to call his family a few times from the detention center. But according to his wife, the calls cost 50 dollars for 15 minutes. The family has set up a fundraising effort to help cover legal fees and their living expenses while Ramsingh is in custody. The campaign on GoFundMe raised over 14,000 dollars by Wednesday evening.

Referring to the man as “a criminal alien,” the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said, “A green card is a privilege, not a right, and under our nation’s laws, our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused.”

Instead, Olson described Ramsingh as “a stand-up guy that does not deserve to be where he’s at right now.”