An Irish woman who attended a wedding in Clare in November has been unable to return to her Texas family after US immigration officials in Shannon ruled that her re-entry documents were invalid.
Ms Bridget Reuter, who has been married to a US citizen for 33 years, was approved for US residency in January 2001, but the US Homeland Security Department says that she did not have "advance parole" permission to leave the country while her files were being adjusted.
Neighbours and friends in Lockhart, Texas, have raised $2,000 in the last week to cover legal expenses, after the Reuter family announced that it intends to fight the case in court.
Bridget's husband, Dietrich, a retired airforce worker who is partially deaf and has been diagnosed with early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, expects more donations after he was interviewed this week on a local television station.
Mr Reuter's son, Richard, is now considering moving his 66-year-old father from Texas to Ireland after a Homeland Security official warned in writing that Bridget "may have created severe consequences for herself" and may be barred from the US for 10 years.
The Homeland Security Department accepts that it approved Ms Reuter's petition for residency status in January 2001, but says it has no record of her applying for "advance parole" permission to leave the country while waiting for her residency status to be formally adjusted, a claim Ms Reuter denies.
"We really aren't sure what to do," her husband told The Irish Times. "I don't want to have to travel to Ireland, but we will have to think of something." Mrs Reuter (61) has been living with her 89-year-old mother in Ballymahon, Longford, since she was refused entry to the US last November. Ms Reuter had flown into Ireland after she was asked to be matron-of-honour at her niece's wedding in Co Clare.
She said that she was eager to get back to Texas to see her family but didn't know if that would ever be possible again.
"I don't know what the next step is. All I know it that I am very unhappy. I can't see my family and my son and my two little grandchildren. I'm stuck here," she added.