Alma Bowman faces deportation as ICE questions her U.S. citizenship, despite her American Navy veteran father and decades spent in the U.S.
MACON, Ga. — A Macon woman is facing potential deportation after being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March.
Alma Bowman, 58, remains in custody at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA, but her family argues she is a U.S. citizen.
While she was born in the Philippines, her father Lawrence Bowman was an American Navy Veteran. Her family moved to the U.S. when she was 10, and she’s lived in Macon for nearly half a century.
Bowman is a Jones County High School alum, along with her children, John and Chris.
“She’s lived all of her adult life here,” John said. “She worked at the Kmart before it closed down. She was a bartender in Macon for a good while, and all of her life, she has been in America and has an American father.”
But proving she is a U.S. citizen soon became a challenge. The government revoked her permanent residency nearly 20 years ago following a criminal conviction for writing $1,200 worth of bad checks.
John says she paid back her debt and served time, before she returned back to living her normal life.
“There were some things with drugs and an abusive relationship that she was in, so she got in trouble because of those things, and she did her time for all of that,” John said. “
That was until a normal traffic stop in 2017 turned into an ICE arrest, where Bowman remained in custody for 3 years due to her record.
“I don’t remember exactly what the traffic stop was for, like a tail light or something, they saw that she had a record,” John said. “She didn’t get in trouble for anything else. It was a, ‘You have a record, so we’re gonna get rid of you.’ And that was bad.”
During her time in several different facilities, Bowman became a key witness to non-consensual procedures being committed by a doctor against women in a Georgia detention center.
“She was a whistleblower for the case at Irwin County Detention Center where Dr. Amin was doing forced hysterectomies and other medical malpractice things to the women there that couldn’t speak English or say no otherwise,” John said. “She knew it might lead to problems for her if she did, but she did.”
The facility was investigated and condemned by the U.S. Senate and which has since closed. Bowman was released to her sons in 2020 due to her underlying health conditions during the pandemic, under the condition she would check in with ICE each year.
Upon her release, Bowman and her family went on to advocate for human and immigrant rights through their “Justice for Alma Bowman” campaign.
“It’s an ongoing battle I think for everybody in this situation,” Chris said. “Without the team’s support … I don’t think I personally would have handled the trauma of everything that has happened to my mom well. “
Yearly ICE visits took a turn this year, when Bowman did not come out of the agency’s Atlanta field office to return to her family on March 26.
“I thought it was going to be another regular check in,” John said. “The lawyer came out crying, letting us know that they took her…More than anything for me, it’s more frustration and anger and disappointment in a combination of the court systems and ICE as a whole. You’re told double jeopardy isn’t a thing all your life. And then, this is for a different thing.”
As Bowman’s fight continues, her sons remain hopeful. John and Chris are working with their legal team to explore all options for their mom’s release.
“I cannot fathom how anyone can think that that’s okay. These are people trying to build families and just try to work,” Chris said. “Most people don’t understand the real stories behind these cases.”
13WMAZ reached out to ICE for an interview to discuss Bowman’s case. The agency has not yet responded.