Jasmine Mooney is back home after she was detained by ICE earlier this month while applying for a work visa at the U.S./Mexico border.
Alexis Eagles, Mooney’s mother, confirmed Saturday that her daughter landed at the Vancouver International Airport at around midnight and returned to her home in the city.
Eagles says she was at the airport to greet her 35-year-old daughter, along with friends of Mooney’s.
When her permit was denied on March 3, she began searching for flights home. But border security would not allow it. According to Mooney’s mom she was “detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the San Ysidro border crossing, where she was held for three nights.”
“They said, ‘You’re not in trouble. You’re not a criminal. You didn’t do anything wrong’… and then next thing you know I was taken,” Mooney told 1130 NewsRadio.
She was then transferred to several different facilities in California and Arizona.
“We eventually learned that about 30 people, including Jasmine, were forcibly removed from their cells at 3:00 am and transferred to the San Luis Detention Center in Arizona,” Eagles said in a post on Facebook. “They are housed together in a single concrete cell with no natural light, fluorescent lights that are never turned off, no mats, no blankets, and limited bathroom facilities.”
“No one deserves to go through that,” Mooney said of the experience.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had said Mooney was processed in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order that subjected “all aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law” to possible arrest.
During Mooney’s detainment, B.C. Premier David Eby called on the federal government to ask for her release.
“The federal government should be doing all they can through diplomatic channels to get her returned to Canada as quickly as possible,” said Eby.
He says the situation only reinforces anxieties many British Columbians have about tensions with the U.S.
“What about our relatives who are working in the States? What about when we cross the border? What kind of an experience are we going to have? The harm that this does to the U.S. economy through impacted tourism, impacted business relationships, impacted people who are seeking visas to work in the United States who have special skills that they can’t get anywhere else: It is reckless, the approach of the president. And this woman should be brought back to Canada as quickly as possible.”
But in a statement to 1130 NewsRadio, Global Affairs Canada, the agency responsible for the country’s diplomatic and consular relations, said while it was aware that a Canadian citizen is being detained in Arizona, they could not intervene on behalf of Mooney.
“Consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information and to provide consular assistance. Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed,” Global Affairs said on Thursday.
“Every country or territory decides who can enter or exit through its borders. The Government of Canada cannot intervene on behalf of Canadian citizens with regard to the entry and exit requirements of another country.”
Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer in Blaine, Wash., who has been a lifelong lawyer for one of Mooney’s friends, said he originally thought the plan to renew the visa in San Ysidro was risky. He told 1130 NewsRadio that the whole ordeal that ensued was unnecessary.
“The simply could have sent her on the next plane home,” he said. “They’re keeping her in custody for weeks and weeks and weeks, [it] was a complete waste of government resources.”
He said it is symbolic of how things have changed in the U.S.
“It’s interesting how hypocritical the Americans are on cases with their nationals overseas in Russia being detained and how things can drag on for months and years,” Saunders said.
He said he believes the outcry in the Canadian media helped force the decision to release Mooney.
“The American government hates bad publicity, and once word got out in the Canadian media, there were U.S reports of it too,” he continued.
Mooney is adjusting back into her life in Abbotsford but said she is still having trouble processing the whole ordeal.
