UW Medicine employee, green card holder detained by ICE in Tacoma

Lewelyn Dixon was on her way back to the Seattle area on Feb. 28 after visiting family in the Philippines when she was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to the immigration detention facility in Tacoma.

Her lawyer Benjamin Osorio said she was detained because of a non-violent conviction from 2001, for embezzlement. At the time, she was sentenced to 30 days in a halfway house and a $6,400 fine; she received no jail or prison time, he told KUOW.

Dixon is a lab technician at UW Medicine and has a green card. She’s 64 years old and has lived in the U.S. since she was 14.

RELATED: The U.S. needs kidney doctors. The Trump administration deported one despite her valid visa

“She was probably operating under the understanding that, because she traveled before, she didn't really have any issues,” Osorio added. “But… [now], we're in sort of a maximum enforcement environment.”

Green card holders with certain kinds of criminal histories are deportable, but Osorio said his client does not meet those criteria.

Dixon will likely be held in detention till at least July 17, when she’s scheduled for an immigration judge to hear her case. Osorio said he has requested an earlier date, as well as parole, so she can get back to her job and her life in the Seattle area.

“I don't think this is necessarily the best use of taxpayer money, to detain a 64-year-old woman,” he said. “You could put her on an ankle monitor, if you wanted.”

RELATED: British tourist arrested and detained at Tacoma ICE center after exchanging housework for lodging

Dixon was eligible for citizenship but had not yet applied in order to keep some family property in the Philippines, Osorio said.

“She is eligible to naturalize, and has been for quite some time,” he said. “She could have naturalized in 2006 if she wanted to, after the conviction. And she, definitely, could have naturalized before she committed the offense, too, because she's been here so long.”

Melania Madriaga is Dixon’s niece, and six years her junior. She said Dixon helped raise her children after her divorce, and also helped her sister, a single mom, raise hers.

“She promised my mom to watch over us always, and she’s following through,” Madriaga said.

RELATED: Nearly 3 million immigrants got amnesty under Reagan. Some of them still work on Washington's farms

A spokesperson for ICE declined to comment on Dixon’s case.