Marcel Rosa watched helplessly as federal agents led his wife, Jemmy Jimenez Rosa, away at Boston Logan International Airport on Aug. 11. Their three young daughters clung to him in tears, fear and confusion.

What should have been the end of a joyful vacation to Mexico for the Canton family, with over 30 relatives, had turned into a nightmare. Jimenez Rosa, a legal permanent resident and mother of four U.S. citizens, was detained over what her lawyer believes was a decades-old, personal-use marijuana charge, which is no longer a crime in Massachusetts today.

“I was just like, ‘Girls, we might never see your mother again in this country,’” Marcel Rosa, 38, said on Friday.

“I looked over to the officer and said, ‘Am I telling the truth?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that could be possible.’ I told

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