A Delaware County nurse who was pulled aside by immigration agents the moment she stepped off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport is now home, but not free of government tracking. Monica Ryadi, 30, spent 15 days in federal immigration detention after she was arrested on Sept. 15 while traveling with her husband and young son for what was supposed to be a Disneyland vacation, and she now wears a GPS ankle monitor as she fights to stay in the country she has called home since she was 9 years old.
The family had barely cleared the gate at LAX when they were surrounded by four or five men in plain clothes who identified themselves as ICE agents, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Ryadi was taken into custody and transported to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, where she remained for 15 days before a U.S. magistrate judge ordered her released on Sept. 29, 2026, per the same report. A federal court docket reviewed by habeasdockets.org shows Ryadi filed a habeas corpus petition under federal law in the Central District of California, which resulted in an order that she be released from physical custody.
Ryadi was formally released on Sept. 29 under an alternative-to-detention program that requires GPS monitoring, according to NBC10 Philadelphia. She continues to wear an ankle monitor that tracks her movements, the station's report notes. As first reported by CBS News Philadelphia, Ryadi says she is now focused on fighting to remain in the United States.
A Family's Decades-Long Legal Limbo
Ryadi was brought to the United States from Indonesia at age 9, after her parents fled religious persecution there, the Inquirer reports. The family entered the country on legal visas in 2005, and five years later was granted what is known as withholding of removal, a protection that bars deportation to Indonesia but does not offer a path to citizenship, according to the outlet's account. When she is not navigating her own immigration case, Ryadi works as a registered nurse at Riddle Hospital in Media, caring for cardiac patients, as reported by PhillyVoice.
The circumstances behind her arrest remain disputed. The Department of Homeland Security told NBC10 that Ryadi overstayed her authorization and was issued a final order of removal in 2010. Her attorney, Eric Rosenfeld, argues instead that her current order of supervision allows her to remain lawfully in the country despite that removal order, per the same report. Rosenfeld told the Inquirer he plans to file petitions in both federal court and immigration court seeking to secure her safety and residency, though the outcome of those filings remains unknown.
Part of a Broader Airport Crackdown
Ryadi's case is not isolated. Advocacy group Asian Americans United estimates that more than 20 people have been arrested at Philadelphia International Airport or while attempting to fly there since mid-July, including at least 13 arrests at the airport itself, according to the Inquirer. Among them was Michael “Sandy” Sims, a 42-year-old Ireland-born Philadelphia resident who was arrested by immigration agents at San Jose's airport on Sept. 2 as he prepared to fly home, the outlet reported. A Philadelphia man, Mamadou Fadel Cherif, who had lived legally in the country for nearly two decades and received protection from political violence in Guinea, remained in detention as the administration sought to deport him to Ghana, per the same report.
The arrests fit a nationwide pattern. ICE arrested a record 49,571 people across the country in July, averaging nearly 1,600 arrests per day and marking a 15% jump from the previous month, according to Deportation Data Project figures cited by the Inquirer. Pennsylvania accounted for 1,174 of those July arrests, while New Jersey saw 2,112, the outlet reported. Roughly half of those arrested that month had no criminal convictions or charges, and fewer than a quarter had been convicted of a crime, per the same report.
The American Immigration Council told the Inquirer that protections like withholding of removal are offering very little shelter under current enforcement policy, with the organization describing the administration's approach as trying to “ship them out wherever it can — and keep them locked up in the meantime.” For Ryadi, that policy landscape now shapes daily life back in Delaware County, where she continues working as a nurse while wearing the ankle monitor and waiting to see whether the legal petitions her attorney plans to file can secure her future in the only country she has known since childhood.
