Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney recounted her horror of staying 11 days in ICE detention.
Canadian actress and entrepreneur
Jasmine Mooney
who was detained by ICE agents at the Mexican border in March said the place “breaks you into a million pieces”. During her 11-day detention, Mooney was transferred to many places and underwent many medical tests. It breaks you. That place breaks you into a million pieces. It is so disgusting what goes on in there,” Mooney recently told CBC News in an interview.
Jasmine Mooney’s case has scared Canadians as she was detained when she went to get her work visa in the US renewed. According to experts, her case was the first such instance where a Canadian citizen who’s applied for a work visa got detained.
Why was Jasmine Mooney arrested?
Jasmine Mooney who used to work in the US first hit the immigration trouble last spring. She said she had applied for her work visa at the Blaine, Washington, border office and was denied because the employer letterhead was missing. She tried again at the San Diego border in April 2024 and got the visa. She returned to California and worked. In November last year, she went back to Canada and faced a visa problem while re-entering. She was told that her work visa was revoked. She remained in Canada, found a new job in the US and applied for a visa again.
On March 3, she went to the San Diego immigration office that processed her visa. The officer there told her that she would have to reapply through a consulate. She said when she was looking for flights back home, a man came and asked her to go with him. The shoelaces from her sneakers were pulled off, which offered her a hint that she was going to be arrested.
Chinese inmate gave Mooney her phone time
Mooney said at a San Diego prison area where she was held, a Chinese inmate offered her phone time, using which Mooney reached out to at least one reporter. After her story got out, she was released within a few days and came back to Canada.