Fate of Columbia man in ICE custody takes a toll on his supporters

Owen Ramsingh, a longtime Columbia resident, remains in a Texas detention center more than a month after he was detained in Chicago by Customs and Border Protection agents upon returning home from a trip to his home country, the Netherlands.

The green card holder, who immigrated to the U.S. as a child in the 1980s, is facing deportation due to a conviction for cocaine possession when he was a teenager. When asked for an explanation for Ramsingh’s detention, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson sent a general e-mail to KBIA last month calling Ramsingh a “criminal alien” and saying, “a green card is a privilege, not a right.”

At Ramsingh’s first hearing in El Paso, Texas last week, his family said the judge indicated a willingness to halt removal proceedings if attorneys can prov