A Delco nurse arrested by ICE on her way to Disneyland faces first check-in. ‘I thought I was going to be redetained.’

The Delaware County nurse who was arrested by ICE as she took her 3-year-old son to Disneyland last month faced her first agency check-in on Thursday ― emerging free and able to go home after three hours.

Friends and family had worried ICE would rearrest Monica Ryadi, 30, when she presented herself, despite a federal magistrate judge having earlier ordered her freed from detention. She continues to have to wear an ankle monitor to track her movements.

“I’m glad it didn’t go the way I thought it was going to go,” a tired Ryadi said afterward. “I thought I was going to be redetained.”

Amid President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations, immigrants who long thought they were safe from enforcement are suddenly at risk. ICE has increasingly taken people into custody at what were supposed to be routine check-ins, meetings that immigrants have little choice but to attend, as skipping a required appointment can itself be grounds for deportation.

Ryadi arrived at the main ICE headquarters in Center City shortly before 8 a.m., supported by about 20 friends, family members, clergy, community members, immigration activists ― and by Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, who called Ryadi’s arrest “absolutely unforgivable.”

A nun laid hands on Ryadi and prayed for her. Another person held a sign that said, “Stand with Monica! Our nurse and neighbor.”

Ryadi’s attorney, Eric Rosenfeld, said early Thursday morning he had received conflicting messages from the agency, one directing Ryadi to the headquarters at 8th and Cherry Streets, and a second telling her to go to an office on Chestnut Street that handles intensive-supervision appearances.

After clarification, Ryadi went to the second office, where she was escorted inside by Rosenfeld and Scanlon, and accompanied by her husband, Steven Sary, 35, and their son, Luca.

Ryadi said afterward that she was overwhelmed and grateful for the support of so many people. Her husband said he was frustrated that his wife continues to be tracked by ICE.

“Why does she need the ankle monitor?” he said. “She’s not a criminal. Where is she going to go? We have no reason to run.”

Ryadi came lawfully to the U.S. at age 9, grew up attending Philadelphia schools, and continues to live here legally under a grant of what’s called Withholding of Removal.

On Sept. 15, the family had barely stepped off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport when they were surrounded by four or five men in street clothes who said they were ICE agents, flashed a badge, and snapped Ryadi into handcuffs.

“It felt like I was kidnapped,” Ryadi told The Inquirer at the time. “I kept saying, ‘I’m legal, I’m a legal immigrant.’”

She and her husband were taking their son to the West Coast theme park so he could meet his favorite Cars movie characters and visit the Cars Land attraction there.

Ryadi spent 15 days in custody at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California before being ordered released. Her husband and son flew to her immediately, and the family reunited at the same Los Angeles hotel they booked when they had planned to visit Disneyland.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday.

Homeland Security earlier said that Ryadi was “an illegal alien” who was taken into custody “during a targeted enforcement operation at Los Angeles International Airport.”

DHS said she entered the U.S. legally in 2005 but “overstayed her welcome.” An immigration judge issued a deportation order in 2010, DHS said, although the agency did not note that such an order is a standard part of receiving permission to stay, work, and live in the U.S. under a grant of Withholding of Removal.

Ryadi was brought to this country as a child, by parents fleeing religious persecution in Indonesia.

They entered on legal visas in 2005, and five years later were officially granted Withholding. That’s where an Immigration Court judge agrees that deporting someone to their homeland could get them hurt or killed.

It’s similar to asylum, though more limited. The key difference is that under Withholding the federal government retains the right to deport someone if it can find a third country willing to take them. Withholding does not include a path to citizenship.

Traditionally, people who gained that relief were left alone.

Now that’s changed, as the Trump administration takes a new, hard view ― seeing those who have Withholding, even people like Ryadi who have lived here for decades, as candidates for deportation. Some immigrants are held in ICE detention for months while the administration tries to find a foreign government to accept them.

Attorney Rosenfeld has noted that Ryadi is a healthcare professional, employed at Riddle Hospital in Media, a taxpayer, the spouse of a U.S. citizen, and the mother of a citizen son. She grew up in the United States with government permission, has work authorization, a Real ID, and a Social Security number.

The couple has arranged their lives around their son, setting schedules so one parent is always home with him. Ryadi works weekends at the hospital while her husband works Monday to Friday as a UPS truck driver.

Rosenfeld said he plans to file petitions in federal court and Immigration Court to try to secure Ryadi’s safety and residency. He had argued on Thursday that Ryadi should not be made to wear an ankle monitor, and hopes to have it removed or replaced with a less uncomfortable device soon.