Lewelyn Dixon, the UW Medicine lab technician known to friends and coworkers as Aunty Lynn, became a naturalized U.S. citizen on her 66th birthday in July, closing out a saga that began when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained her at Sea-Tac International Airport in February 2025. Dixon had lived in the United States as a lawful permanent resident for more than 50 years, first arriving from the Philippines at age 14, before a decades-old conviction sent her into federal custody.
Dixon's ordeal started on February 28, 2025, when Customs and Border Protection detained her at Sea-Tac upon her return from a family trip to the Philippines, and by March 2 she had been transferred to what is now called the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, according to The Daily. ICE cited a non-violent embezzlement conviction from 2001 as the reason for her detention, for which Dixon had served a 30-day sentence in a halfway house and paid a $6,400 fine, according to KUOW. Despite that old case, Dixon had traveled to the Philippines regularly for years without incident.
A Community Mobilizes For Aunty Lynn
Dixon has worked as a lab tech at UW Medicine since 2015 and is represented by SEIU Local 925, which organized labor protests and pushed the university to preserve her job while she sat in detention for three months. Public mobilization for her release was coordinated by SEIU Local 925, the Machinists union, and the Tanggol Migrante Network, a grassroots organization defending Filipino migrants in Washington state, per the same account. The coalition rallied outside the Tacoma facility under the hashtag #FreeLewelyn as her case dragged on.
Her detention did not happen in isolation. It was part of a broader 2025 trend in the Pacific Northwest in which ICE targeted long-term green card holders over decades-old criminal records, including Boeing-area forklift operator Maximo Londonio, who was detained at Sea-Tac in May 2025 while returning from the Philippines, as documented by Labor Notes. Londonio's arrest similarly drew union advocacy and demonstrations outside the same detention center.
The Legal Fight And Her Release
The statutory hook that allowed Dixon's detention traces to federal immigration law: under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(13)(C), returning lawful permanent residents with a prior conviction involving moral turpitude are classified as applicants seeking admission, subjecting them to mandatory detention and inadmissibility proceedings regardless of how long they have lived in the country, according to Justia's summary of the statute. That rule meant Dixon's 2001 conviction resurfaced the moment she stepped off a plane at Sea-Tac, more than two decades after she had resolved the case.
Immigration Judge Tammy Fitting issued her ruling on May 29, 2025, inside a courtroom at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, finding that Dixon should not be deported and ordering her release that same afternoon, according to The News Tribune. Relatives and supporters had gathered outside the facility during the hearing and celebrated once family members announced the decision.
From Detention To The Oath Of Allegiance
Dixon started the U.S. citizenship process immediately after her release in May 2025, KUOW reports, and went on to complete her citizenship interviews and pass her citizenship test before being approved. She described the journey as hectic and frustrating at times, but on her 66th birthday in July she recited the oath of allegiance and became a citizen. The ceremony included a video of President Trump, whose second administration had been scrambling to hire more ICE officers during the period Dixon was detained; Dixon said many people in the crowd appeared uneasy watching the video, per KUOW.
The Tacoma facility where Dixon spent three months in detention has remained a flashpoint well beyond her case. The Northwest ICE Processing Center is owned and operated by private prison contractor The GEO Group and holds a capacity of 1,575 beds, making it the fourth-largest immigration detention center in the country, according to the Washington State Office of the Attorney General. In April, Governor Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown filed a federal lawsuit against The GEO Group after the contractor repeatedly denied state health inspectors access to the facility following more than 3,500 detainee complaints, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of the state lawsuit.
A May report from the University of Washington Center for Human Rights found that a seven-month federal contract extension between ICE and The GEO Group had lowered operational standards and accountability at the Tacoma processing center, according to The Urbanist. Now free of the system entirely, Dixon told KUOW she is looking forward to traveling, retiring, and babysitting relatives.
