The rooms were small, the mattresses hard and they got mostly canned food to eat with a once-a-day break to go outside.

Juana España Lopez, 71, of Honduras and her daughter, Jackie Merlos of Portland, were allowed to share a room at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Tacoma but that was little comfort, she said.

España Lopez’s blood pressure went up to around 180 and she had to be seen by a nurse, she told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday.

España Lopez returned to Portland earlier this week after a hearing and release from the Tacoma center, where she had been held for nearly three months following her arrest in late June with Merlos at Peace Arch Historical State Park in Blaine, Washington, on the Canadian border.

They had been meeting up with España Lo

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