Danish man in Mississippi detained by ICE at citizenship meeting

A Danish man living in Mississippi for a dozen years has been imprisoned in Louisiana for more than a month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took him into custody because of a “paperwork miscommunication” during his effort to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, his wife says.

Kasper Eriksen and his wife Savannah Eriksen pose for a photo in Sturgis, Mississippi, in autumn 2024. (Credit: Laura Bowman Photography)

Kasper Juul Eriksen, now 32, left his home in Aalborg, Denmark, as a teenager in 2009 and spent a year in the U.S. as a high school exchange student in Starkville, Mississippi.

He and a local teenager, Savannah Hobart, fell in love. After he returned to Denmark’s fourth-largest city, he and Savannah maintained their relationship for four years, across an ocean and seven time zones.

Kasper immigrated to the U.S. in 2013 and got work as a welder – a job he has held steadily since then. He and Savannah married in 2014 and settled outside Starkville in the tiny town of Sturgis, soon starting a family.

For years, Kasper went through the process of trying to become a U.S. citizen, and Savannah Eriksen – now homeschooling their children and pregnant with their fifth baby, due in August – said her husband’s move toward citizenship appeared to be on track. He received notice last September that his naturalization application was being reviewed, and records from the U.S. government raised no questions about his paperwork, Savannah said.

Kasper and Savannah Eriksen went to Memphis, Tennessee, on April 15 so he could be interviewed about naturalization, and she said they were met by ICE agents.

“Kasper was detained for a paperwork miscommunication from 2015, and I was sent home with no explanation and no idea where my husband had been transported,” Savannah Eriksen said in a statement she released late Monday to Mississippi Today.

Kasper is among an unknown number of immigrants who have been detained since President Donald Trump began his second term in January. Some of the detainees had entered the U.S. without authorization, while others entered with temporary visas or, like Kasper Eriksen, were in the process of becoming naturalized citizens.

Savannah said she and her husband were told in April that his paperwork problem was with an application for removal of conditions on his residency – a form used by an immigrant married to a U.S. citizen.

After Kasper was taken into custody in Memphis, Savannah made the three-hour drive back to Sturgis by herself and “to say I couldn’t control my emotions would be an understatement,” she said.

“The next 24 hours would, without a doubt, (be) the most frightening and stressful I have ever experienced, as I pined for my husband and some kind of communication to confirm his safety and whereabouts,” Savannah said.

She said that before the April appointment, her husband had never been told about any paperwork miscommunication, either through online messages or during interviews in the naturalization process.

She later learned that Kasper was being detained at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana.

Kasper’s attorneys have filed petitions to seek his release, and they met with him May 15 to review those. A judge will decide whether he will be let out, and Savannah said he does not have a court date.

“Kasper is a fully integrated, productive member of society,” Savannah said. She said he has “an impeccable work ethic,” holds a driver’s license and has paid taxes since being employed in the U.S.

“While Kasper embodies all the positive qualities of a hard-working man in pursuit of the American Dream, he never forgets his family and friends,” she said. “He spends time with us and takes the time to give each of his children the attention and fatherly love they deserve.”

She said friends and family in Mississippi and Denmark are supporting the family with “prayers, financial assistance and positive, uplifting attitudes.