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  "description": "The Kiwi in ICE custody was transferred, then dropped off the map.",
  "path": "/everleehasdisappeared/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-11T00:49:07.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.webworm.co",
  "tags": [
    "visited last month",
    "hiding clients from their lawyers",
    "Online Detainee Locator System",
    "According to NPR",
    "sent a letter",
    "its existence is being reevaluated",
    "left out to dry by New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters",
    "from the Arizona Mirror",
    "Everlee Update + THANK YOUWe hear Everlee’s voice, and the pressure is finally on.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier",
    "Everlee Has DisappearedEverlee Wihongi was transferred by ICE to the notorious “Camp East Montana” at Fort Bliss, Texas. Then she disappeared.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier",
    "Did Winston Peters Lie About Everlee?New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters told the media Everlee Wihongi didn’t fill in a form declaring her past. Is he fibbing? Webworm’s David Farrier reports.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier",
    "Everlee Will Remain Locked Up For Another MonthEverlee Wihongi has appeared in court, only to be sent back to ICE detention until at least June 10. David Farrier of Webworm talks to her mother Betty about the news.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier",
    "The ICE Detention Centre Housing Everlee WihongiVisiting Everlee Wihongi, the New Zealander kidnapped by ICE, at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. David Farrier’s Webworm.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier",
    "When Your Daughter is Kidnapped by ICEDavid Farrier’s Webworm talks to Betty Wihongi, whose Kiwi daughter Everlee got kidnapped by ICE at LAX after a trip to New Zealand.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier"
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  "textContent": "_****Like all of Webworm's public interest journalism, there is no paywall - and there are no ads. This is made possible thanks to its paying subscribers. This work is not possible without them. Thank you.****_\n\nHi,\n\nAs I write this newsletter at 7.42pm in New York, New Zealander Everlee Wihongi has disappeared. Still in ICE custody, her family and lawyer have no fucking idea where she is.\n\nLet me explain.\n\nJump To Comments\n\nYesterday, Everlee Wihongi was meant to meet with her lawyer at the ICE detainment centre _Webworm_ visited last month. Meeting with her lawyer was a key step in getting free from all of this. Then things changed.\n\nAt 1.28pm, I got a message from her mother, Betty:_\"They have pulled a fast one. They are transferring Evs to Arizona. It's happening now.\"_\n\nICE is known to do this – moving detainees suddenly, from place to place. As _The American Prospect_ reported last year, ICE is essentially hiding clients from their lawyers:\n\n> _\"ICE uses bureaucracy and location transfers to isolate their detainees from both their families and their lawyers, limiting their ability to get out of their predicaments and increasing misery and hopelessness.\"_\n\nThen things got worse.\n\n* * *\n\nAccording to ICE's own Online Detainee Locator System, Everlee had been moved to ICE's notorious \"Camp East Montana\" at Fort Bliss, Texas.\n\nIn short, this is the United States' largest and worst ICE detainment centre – somehow an insanely worse situation to where Everlee was previously locked up. It is the largest immigrant detention centre in the US – an industrial tent city of 3000 detainees. There are 2000 beds.\n\nIt also has the most detainees who have died inside. According to NPR:\n\n> _Out of 25 people who died in ICE detention since October, three of them were at Camp East Montana.\n>\n>  ICE inspectors in February found 49 violations to detention standards at the facility, including inadequate medical care and failure from staff to \"accurately document required checks to prevent significant self-harm and suicide.\"_\n\n__Camp East Montana.__\n\nIn December last year, human rights groups sent a letter outlining other behaviour at the facility:\n\n> _\"Detainee reports reveal shocking conditions of confinement at Ft. Bliss\n>  including multiple incidents of use of force by officers against detainees that involve abusive sexual contact, several of which have required hospitalization.\n>\n> Detained immigrants further report lack of adequate food and the provision of spoiled food, leading to hunger and significant weight loss; inadequate medical care; failure to provide basic hygiene supplies, including soap; squalid conditions, including sewage entering meal areas, and lack of cleaning supplies; prolonged detention in hold rooms; lack of outdoor recreation; and unreasonable barriers to access to counsel.\"_\n\nThere have also been outbreaks of tuberculosis and measles. It's so bad, its existence is being reevaluated (and yet it still exists).\n\nSo yes – that is where Everlee (left out to dry by New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters) was moved yesterday.\n\n* * *\n\nThen it got – _somehow_ – worse.\n\nEverlee has disappeared. As I write this, she is no longer listed on ICE's online detainee locator system.\n\n_Webworm_ has spoken to Everlee's mother Betty, who currently has no idea where her daughter is:\n\n> _\"They want to mentally and emotionally break people. If it looks like you have support, they are going to move you and keep you scared and anxious.\"_\n\nAccording to a lawyer who knows Everlee's case intimately:\n\n> _\"They are probably moving her to a different facility. This is what they have been doing. It is a way to “forum shop” and make it hard for attorneys to represent them. This never happened in the past.\"_\n\nThis level of movement – and the disappearing – is new.\n\nBetty (who is an American citizen; Everlee has a Green Card) went on:\n\n> _\"Winston Peters has washed his hands of anything to do with New Zealanders in custody. So if you are a New Zealander in custody here, you are screwed. MFAT is too busy kissing up to the US to actually do his job.\n>\n>  The NZ Consulate are good people, [but] with no teeth. They can't step in unless something is so out of place that it is obvious. Everlee's situation doesn't even raise an eyebrow for them.\n>\n> And finally, ICE is an agency that has congressional backing to act against our constitution with impunity.\n>\n> And boy, do they ever.\"_\n\nFinally, _Webworm_ spoke to Everlee's sister:\n\n> _\"I am urging Winston Peters to look into my sister Everlee’s case himself. Reach out to the family. Reach out to our lawyer. 31 days. No charge.\n>\n>  We are fighting a system that is deliberately disrupting her legal access, dragging this out hoping she breaks. Everlee has always been proud of her Māori roots and loves being from New Zealand. Mr. Peters, we don’t even know where she is right now. It’s time to step in. Inquire. Advocate. She deserves that much.\"_\n\n* * *\n\nI am deeply aware that _Webworm_ is not an ICE newsletter. It is not an Everlee Wihongi newsletter.\n\nBut Everlee's situation speaks to so much that aligns with _Webworm_ 's values: A sense of justice, and the utter madness exhibited not just by the United States – but by the New Zealand government as well, who have washed their hands of this brown body that they, of course, give zero shits about.\n\n_David._\n\n## **Update: Monday May 11, 1.18pm ET:**\n\nWe know where Everlee is.\n\n  * As previously reported, for a time she was listed as being detained at the notorious \"Camp East Montana\" at Fort Bliss, Texas. She then dropped off the map.\n  * Late last night, she was back on ICE's database – but with no guide on where she was. _\"Call ICE for Details\"_ was as much as we got.\n\n\n\n  * As of today, she is back on the map: Listed as being in Arizona at the \"Eloy Federal Contract Facility\". It's not great either: This, from the Arizona Mirror:\n\n\n\n> _The Eloy Detention Center is operated by private prison contractor CoreCivic. It spans seven football fields laid side-by-side, and can hold about 1,600 detainees at any time.\n>\n>  Since its ICE contract began, the facility has faced repeated scrutiny. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security watchdog report last year found staff failed to preserve video from several use-of-force incidents, limiting investigators’ ability to review what occurred. Members of Congress and advocacy groups have also cited allegations from detainees describing harsh conditions and mistreatment._\n\n* * *\n\n_****Like all of Webworm's public interest journalism, there is no paywall - and there are no ads. This is made possible thanks to its paying subscribers. Thank you.****_\n\nBecome a Full Member\n\n_****Give a one-off donation to Webworm:****_\n\nDonation box\n\n* * *\n\n## Webworm's Everlee Series So Far:\n\nEverlee Update + THANK YOUWe hear Everlee’s voice, and the pressure is finally on.Webworm with David FarrierDavid FarrierEverlee Has DisappearedEverlee Wihongi was transferred by ICE to the notorious “Camp East Montana” at Fort Bliss, Texas. Then she disappeared.Webworm with David FarrierDavid FarrierDid Winston Peters Lie About Everlee?New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters told the media Everlee Wihongi didn’t fill in a form declaring her past. Is he fibbing? Webworm’s David Farrier reports.Webworm with David FarrierDavid FarrierEverlee Will Remain Locked Up For Another MonthEverlee Wihongi has appeared in court, only to be sent back to ICE detention until at least June 10. David Farrier of Webworm talks to her mother Betty about the news.Webworm with David FarrierDavid FarrierThe ICE Detention Centre Housing Everlee WihongiVisiting Everlee Wihongi, the New Zealander kidnapped by ICE, at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. David Farrier’s Webworm.Webworm with David FarrierDavid FarrierWhen Your Daughter is Kidnapped by ICEDavid Farrier’s Webworm talks to Betty Wihongi, whose Kiwi daughter Everlee got kidnapped by ICE at LAX after a trip to New Zealand.Webworm with David FarrierDavid Farrier",
  "title": "Everlee Has Disappeared",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-17T21:49:06.379Z"
}