BLUFFTON, S.C. () — A Lowcountry woman is awaiting her fate in a North Carolina courtroom next month after being detained and sent to detention centers across the country while on the way home from a vacation.

Maria Jose Leiton says she followed every step when she immigrated from Costa Rica and had no criminal record or issues while she was in the United States.

But she said, just as life began to feel settled, a vacation turned everything upside down.

“The supervising officer came to me, and he told me, ‘Maria, you will lose your flight, and I will give you 5 minutes, you can call your boyfriend, he’s outside and you will tell him you are being detained,” Leiton said.

Leiton said she had a driver’s license, a passport and paperwork with her at the U.S. Virgin Islands airport, but none of that mattered, and she was still detained on her way back from her vacation with her boyfriend.

Leiton said she received nothing when asked if there was a hearing or if a judge was present.

Leiton has been in the states for six years, working and starting a business. She’s been living with her boyfriend, who is a U.S. citizen. She was creating a life with her 10-year-old son.

But Leiton said she felt like she was a criminal after being detained in that airport.

Leiton said she was frequently moved to different detention centers, typically soon before her court date, that spanned from the Virgin Islands to Puerto Rico, Miami, Florida, El Paso, Texas and Arizona.

In Miami, specifically, Leiton said she was moved to El Paso just two days before her court date, despite pleading that her day in court was quickly approaching.

Leiton said each detention center was different, but food was scarce, and medicine was hard to come by even when sick. Leiton said the guards could be nice or could be very difficult to deal with.

Eventually after months, two more moves and two more detention centers, Leiton was in Arizona and able to get a hearing and a bond.

But then it still took three weeks for her to be released. She was taken to San Diego, California, and left there alone 5,000 miles from home.

To add insult to injury, Leiton said they told her father she would be released from the Arizona detention center. He was waiting in the parking lot there when she called him from California. He was forced to drive several hours there to get to his daughter.

When he arrived, she had nothing but her suitcase and a new piece of jewelry in the form of an ankle monitor.

“People look at me like I am trash, a criminal, because when they see the ankle bracelet, they think ‘she’s a criminal.’ They never think is for immigration,” Leiton said.

Now back home, Leiton can’t leave the state. She has to check in with ICE regularly via an app on her phone. She said she is still confused on why she is now in danger of being sent away.

“People try to be legal in this country,” Leiton said. “They pay taxes. We try to do the right things. We never want to do the wrong things. And as a person, I respect your country. I know it is not my country. I respect the rules you have.”

Leiton said she applied for asylum five years ago and still has not received any information from immigration court.

Despite that, Leiton said citizenship is still something she is willing to work toward.

She told News 3 that her greatest fear is deportation. Not because she doesn’t love her family in Costa Rica, but it forces her to choose between taking her son from the only country he’s ever known, or enduring a separation that could last months, or even longer.