It was just January, Terez Metry recalled, when she was at her friend Jasmine’s house making vision boards. It was a girls’ night, and Metry had grilled cheeseburger sliders with caramelized onions. She’d also mixed her “Upside Down Punch,” a Sprite and Cran-Pineapple juice concoction she’d first made for a “Stranger Things” party. The group sipped wine while Jasmine’s wife DJ’d, mostly ’90s R&B and Bruno Mars. For her board, Metry chose smaller habits she wanted to commit to, like fitness, sleep and hydration. She cut out pictures of travel, investing and rollerblades and added a paw print for her dogs, Leo and Luna. Near the middle, she pasted a photo of U.S. citizenship documents over an American flag. The gathering was full of a certain kind of hope, that New Year’s afterglow in which no goal feels too big or daunting. After everyone had finished their board, they each had to answer a question. If they had to pick just one goal for 2026, which one did they really, really want? For Metry, who fled an unstable Egypt for Middle Tennessee when she was in the seventh grade, the answer was easy. “I want citizenship,” the 28-year-old recalled saying. “I’ll do anything.” About a month later, she showed up at the Department of Homeland Security facility on Brick Church Pike, hoping to complete a key step toward that dream, the one she held closer than all the rest. She and her husband, Dominique Flemister — a U.S. citizen — had compiled a folder full of bank statements, dates and correspondence for their Form I-130 appointment, the first step toward a green card. Instead, minutes after the appointment began, Metry was detained by ICE. In February, the Banner wrote about what happened to Metry and Flemister that day. This is the story of what’s unfolded since, from Metry’s recollection, events that have spanned an ocean and two continents. A lot has changed for her since that day, and yet, one thing remains the same. Terez Metry still wants to be an American citizen. ‘A crazy, messed-up story’ Flemister didn’t get to say goodbye. After ICE took his wife into custody, he was allowed to return and collect her things. They’d confiscated her phone, but her wedding ring was sitting on the desk where they’d had their appointment. Metry said a female ICE officer transported her to another Nashville facility, dropped her off and left. Her arrival provoked confusion. Who brought you? What happened? She could see two holding cells — one for women, one for men. She said that the attending officer took her fingerprints. When he put them into the system, a light flashed green. “You’re gonna get out,” he told her. “You don’t even have a speeding ticket.” To Metry, it seemed like the officer felt bad for her. He didn’t put her in the cell. He pulled up a chair next to his and gave her back her phone. “Call whoever you need to call,” she recalled him saying. “I can tell this is a crazy, messed-up story.” Within a few days, she was transported to a Knox County jail. “Knoxville was scary,” Metry said. “I was with enemies in Knoxville.” They split up the immigration detainees, and she ended up in a cell with a woman who she said went by the moniker “Murdering Grandma.” She spent a week in Knoxville before ICE arrived to transport the entire group of immigration detainees to the South Louisiana Processing Center. “We’re going to stop in Alabama,” the officers told the group. “Just to rest a little bit.” “Rest” ended up being a four-day stint in a county jail. The prison was dirty, Metry said, but at least the group got to stay together. Then, once more, they were on the move, en route to Basile, La. According to Metry, the women were all held in a smaller version of an army barracks, with space for 80 people. Everything in the room — the 40 bunk beds, the showers and the six toilets, four of which worked — was out in the open. “Kind of insane,” Metry said, “but we made it work.” For weeks, Metry said, there was nothing to do all day, and everyone knew each other’s cases. She said that two or three of the other women had green cards. If y’all are in here, she recalled thinking, I’ll have no luck. At one point, everyone was talking about Estefany Rodríguez, a Nashville journalist who was detained at the same facility, but whom Metry said they never actually saw. ‘Congratulations’ To fight the pure boredom of detention, Metry worked in the library. She thinks she got the job because she is fluent in English and Spanish. One day after her shift, she called Flemister. Right after their call started, lockdown began. Metry said that the facility locked its prisoners down four or five times a day, during which officers told people to lie down on their beds so they could count them and make sure no one had escaped. “I’ll put some money on your account,” Flemister promised before they hung up. But when she went to check, her balance was empty. At the commissary, she was told her account had been frozen. At an earlier date, ICE officers had arrived for the first time to discuss people’s cases. They were supposed to come every week, but it had taken nearly a month for them to show up. After looking up her Alien Registration Number, an officer told her she was scheduled for deportation. She asked about a temporary stay on proceedings she thought her lawyer had filed, and the officer responded that he didn’t see anything in the system. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be deported very soon.” “What are you talking about?” Metry was incredulous. Five minutes ago, another officer had told her the stay was pending. “I’m terrified to go back to Egypt.” “Why?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “Egypt is beautiful. I’ve been there four times.” There was nothing she could do, he told her. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re going to leave very soon.” Metry could no longer hold back tears. She called Flemister, who called their lawyer, who told them that the ICE officer probably didn’t know what he was talking about. Metry had been bracing for this. In Basile, she said she befriended a woman born in China who’d lived in the U.S. for 35 years — and had an order of removal for 25 years. She had three kids, all U.S. citizens, and ran a small business. She spent nine months in ICE custody and $30,000 on legal fees. And then one morning, she was gone. Still, nothing prepared her for the arrival of what she’d been dreading. It was when she saw her account was locked that she started to panic. She called Flemister once more. He called their lawyers, but they still weren’t picking up. ‘This is kidnapping’ ICE officers came for Metry around 1 a.m. They handed her a trash bag and told her to pack her things, she said, before putting her on a bus and driving for about an hour. When they arrived in an open field with an idling airplane, she refused to get off the bus. An ICE officer agreed to speak with her and told her not to worry. This wasn’t a deportation airplane — it was there to take her to another facility, where she could talk to a judge and wrap up her case. Everything would be OK, he said. They were going to New Jersey, where there was another ICE center. She boarded the plane. When they touched down in New Jersey, she scanned her surroundings. To her right, she saw a massive airplane, “EgyptAir” painted in blue letters across the cabin. Egyptian officials descended from the plane carrying a stack of passports. She told an ICE officer that ICE had told her nothing — that she had a lawyer, a husband, a case that was still pending. She gave him her A-Number. He didn’t have his laptop, she recalled him saying, and he’d have to look into it. She waited and waited, but eventually he left. An Egyptian official called her name. She said she was waiting for the ICE officer to look into her case and that she wasn’t supposed to be there. “I’m not getting on,” she said. “This is kidnapping at this point.” The officer listened and then replied in Arabic. “Look,” she recalled him saying, “You’re like my daughter’s age, [so] I’m gonna be honest with you. I don’t know what your case is, or what your issue is. But this is it. You’re getting deported. There’s no lawyer for you to talk to. There’s no husband that’s gonna answer you. “You’re gonna do this the easy way or the hard way.” Metry decided on the hard way. She’d promised Flemister that when the time came, she’d do everything she could to avoid leaving the country. By now, it was early morning in New Jersey, and the sun was up. Still, it was frigid on the tarmac. Everyone else had already boarded the plane — by Metry’s count, 36 Egyptian men, 20 Russian men and three Russian women. She and the officials stared each other down, waiting for someone to make the next move. “OK,” an official finally said. “If you’re not gonna get on, we’re gonna have to carry you.” Six security guards descended from the airplane and handcuffed her wrists and ankles. By now, the icy truth of it all was setting in, and Metry was sobbing. Finally, she understood. On the plane, an airline employee tried to comfort her. When she got to Egypt, he told her, she could call her mom. Her mom, Wafaa, had returned to Egypt over a decade ago, leaving Metry with an uncle in Franklin until she was able to get her own place. The man told her that he’d lived in New Jersey for 20 years and had since moved back. “Where are you from?” he asked her. “Cairo,” she told him. “Where in Cairo?” “Hadaek al-Qubbah.” “OK, but where?” He persisted. “I don’t know,” Metry said, starting to panic. “That’s all I know. I don’t know.” In Louisiana, even after her account was locked, people in detention had told Metry she wouldn’t get deported. Some detainees had agreed to depart voluntarily and were still waiting, seven or eight months later. Some people had actually gotten on the plane, and ICE had come to retrieve them, realizing they’d messed up a last name or made some other clerical error. To some degree, she hadn’t believed it would actually happen until the plane was in the sky. “You’re fine,” the man told her. “This is your country.” “No,” she said. “It’s not.” ‘That’s not how that works’ When the plane touched down in Cairo, Metry told herself the ordeal was over. She would at least get to call her mom, who would come pick her up. Instead, Metry said, they put her in jail at the airport. Metry’s Arabic had atrophied, and she was trying to reassemble her native tongue in a high-stakes scenario. She had no idea where she was. Her mother had no idea she was in the country. Her passport had yet to arrive, and her jailers had no sense of her identity. Was she sure she was Egyptian? They needed to flesh out these details, they told her, to determine if she had any criminal history. She told them that she’d never been in trouble. “Well,” they asked, “how did you get caught then?” Metry told them that she was detained at an appointment — a regular check-in for her green card, since she was married to a citizen. “That’s not true,” she recalled them saying. “That’s not how that works. If you’re married to a U.S. citizen, you automatically get a green card.” In a forgotten language, Metry tried to explain that this was, in fact, how it worked. She swore she wasn’t lying, but without a passport or even her trash bag of belongings, she had no proof. Sorry, her jailers said. They had to lock her up. They put her in a tiny cell. It smelled so bad that she longed for the Alabama county jail. The metal bed stank of urine, so she refused to sit on it. She had no phone, no possessions, no way to keep track of time. There was a small slit in the door that looked out into the hallway, where she could see guards on duty. When she saw them change shifts, something exploded inside her. How long have I been here? She wondered. She started banging on the door. “Let me out!” she screamed. “Let me out! I need to use the bathroom!” At first, the guards ignored her. Eventually, they relented, and in the hallway, she pressed for answers. What’s going on? Have y’all got my passport? Why am I still here? Can I talk to somebody? Can I please call my mom? “No,” they told her. “Get back in your room.” Finally, someone new showed up in the hallway. He was wearing a suit, and Metry’s instincts told her he wasn’t a cop. He carried himself like he was somebody certain of his own importance. He called her name. Oh, thank God, Metry remembered thinking. I’m about to leave. The guards assembled Metry and all 36 men from the flight in a single room. The man in the suit took charge. “I need y’all to be very honest with me,” he told the group. He asked them to raise their hand if they’d entered the U.S. legally. Metry, who’d arrived on a tourist visa, put her hand up, along with three or four others. Everyone else, he said, would have to stay in custody a little longer. Then he asked who’d been caught by ICE due to criminal activity. A few people tentatively raised their hands. “I’m gonna find out either way,” the man in the suit told the group. “The faster you tell me, the faster you’re gonna get out of here.” One man admitted to stealing from Wal-Mart. Another admitted to indiscretions with an underage girl. The man in the suit thanked them both for being honest. “But,” he said, “You’re gonna be in jail for a long time.” There was a heavy pause. “Anyone else?” No one volunteered. Before everyone returned to their cells, Metry approached the man in the suit. He told her they needed to call the embassy and make sure she hadn’t fled to the U.S. because she’d committed crimes in Egypt. He told her that life wasn’t fair, and that she needed to go back to her cell. In the following hours, two different people interviewed her about the particulars of her story. Metry realized they were trying to catch her in a lie. Her case didn’t make sense to them. If she was actually married to a U.S. citizen, they reasoned, why was she there? “Trust me,” Metry told them. “It doesn’t make sense to me either.” When the guards changed shifts, she resumed knocking. She told herself she wasn’t going to stop until she got what she needed. “I’ve never been the kind of person to defend myself,” Metry said, reflecting on her time in detention, “or to be very persistent. This experience definitely taught me to be persistent.” This time, a guard answered. ‘I just melted’ “Please let me talk to my mom,” Metry begged the guard. “Please, please, please.” At first, he said no. Metry asked if he had a daughter, a sister — anyone her age. She asked him to put himself in her shoes. She’d been gone for years. She had no idea where she was or where her mom lived. Could she please just have five minutes to talk? He looked around, nervous. “I’m gonna get in trouble,” he said. “I really can’t.” Metry told him he could hold the phone up on speakerphone. She just wanted her mom to know she was in Egypt. “OK,” he said. “Hurry up, before my manager comes.” He told his partner to grab Metry’s phone. “Wait,” she said. She didn’t have an Egyptian number. AT&T woul