British Columbia

Canadian detained for 11 days by U.S. immigration speaks out for others stuck in limbo

A B.C. woman detained for 11 days by U.S. immigration is speaking out after her tale went viral on social media. Jasmine Mooney was detained and held in immigration detention centres after attempting to apply for a visa and enter the U.S. from Mexico. Her lawyer says she's an example of shifts in how the U.S. is handling travellers

‘That place breaks you into a million pieces,’ Mooney said of her detention by U.S. immigration

A woman looks pensive into camera
Jasmine Mooney, 35, travelled to the U.S. many times in her life. She's worked as an actress, owned bars and was marketing health products when she was detained while trying to apply for a work visa. (Dillon Hodgin/CBC)

Jasmine Mooney's smile went viral after the 35-year-old Canadian was taken into U.S. custody at the Mexican border in March, but her story is now whispered in fear. 

On March 3, Mooney tried to get her work visa renewed, entering at an immigration office at the Mexico-San Diego border, against a U.S. lawyer's advice. Instead she ended up being denied, and then, all of a sudden, detained.

Mooney spent 11 days in custody — off and on in cement cells she says are dubbed "ice boxes" — with little more than a thin foil emergency blanket. Mooney says she faced numerous transfers, humiliating medical tests, degrading treatment and no answers — despite pleas to let her pay for her own flight home.

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She at first refused food and couldn't sleep, but then forced herself to get up and help others.

"It breaks you. That place breaks you into a million pieces. It is so disgusting what goes on in there," Mooney told CBC News in an interview on Thursday.

Her case is one of a series of instances involving non-U.S. travellers that has travellers and legal experts concerned.

WATCH | Jasmine Mooney describes her ICE detainment:

‘That place breaks you’: Canadian woman describes 11 days in ICE custody

19 hours ago
Duration 1:55
Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney tells CBC News about her 11-day ordeal in ICE detention after trying to enter the U.S. to renew her work visa. Mooney describes what she saw as ‘disgusting,’ saying of her detention cell: ‘That place breaks you.’

Mooney's story has become a sort of warning, a harbinger of a shifting attitude toward Canadians travelling or trying to work in the U.S.

Immigration lawyers are urging people who need visa renewals to opt to go to airports, where they can be processed on Canadian soil, with no risk of getting detained if they are deemed ineligible.

'Chilling effect'

Mooney's Blaine, Wash.-based immigration lawyer Len Saunders said her case is scaring Canadian travellers.

"It has a huge chilling effect on Canadians going to the United States," said Saunders.

He advised her not to try to reapply for her visa at a Mexican entry point, given changes he saw under the new Trump administration. 

"She wasn't trying to do anything illegal. She thought she was doing the right thing," said Saunders.

"I've never seen a Canadian citizen who's applied for a work visa, either a brand new one or a renewal, being detained like this."

A woman holds boxes while standing next to a colourful painting featuring fish
Mooney says she left a lot of women behind when she was released and wants to shine a light into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres and how people end up trapped there. (Submitted by Alexis Eagles)

Mooney was at one point held at a San Diego-area prison where a Chinese inmate offered up her phone time enabling Mooney to get her plea out to at least one reporter. At that point, she had no idea that her story had gone viral and so many people were fighting for her freedom. She was released within a few days and left feeling "lucky."

Mooney says she left a lot of women behind when she was released and wants to shine a light into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres and how people end up trapped there.

"I met a girl who had been in there eight months," she said.

She says the women helped her get out — and urged her to tell their stories. Mooney says there were about 140 women in her unit at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, one of the first places she was held, in the Ysidro Mountains foothills of Otay Mesa overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border.

She describes how most of the women she met had lived in the U.S. illegally and overstayed visas — detained with no warning when they reapplied.

A white truck parked next to a silver sign in front of a white building surrounded by barbed wire fencing.
In this 2017 file photo, a vehicle drives into the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. Mooney says there were about 140 women in her unit when she was held there. (Elliot Spagat/The Associated Press)

 "You meet all of the girls who had trekked from India, from Iran, from Africa, they're covered head to toe in bug bites and scars from their journey and they paid all of this money, gave up everything they owned to come to America and then end up in jail and they're all most likely getting shipped back to their countries," said Mooney.

'Scorched earth' approach to immigration

Mooney, who grew up in Yukon and had been living in B.C. until last year, is one in a series of recent U.S. immigration detention cases that have caught attention internationally. 

In January, German tattoo artist Jessica Brösche was was held for more than a month after border agents assumed she'd work illegally. A 28-year-old British backpacker was held for 10 days after trying to enter Washington State from Canada. She'd been living with host families trading housework for board on a tourist visa. A couple returning from Tijuana ended up handcuffed: U.S. citizen Lennon Tyler was chained to a bench, her German fiance Lucas Sielaff held for 16 days for violating his 90 day tourist permit.

NPR reported the story of a Guatemalan immigrant named Sarahi who accidentally drove the wrong way across the Ambassador Bridge trying to go to Costco — and ended up held for five days in a windowless office near the bridge with her daughters, two U.S. citizens aged one and five.

"I don't think that the Americans are targeting Canadians. I think they're targeting anyone immigrating or visiting the United States. There's this heightened scrutiny," said Saunders. "It's almost a scorched earth whether you're coming in and applying for a work visa or coming in as a visitor."

He's urging anybody reapplying for visas to do it at an airport — where they are safe on Canadian soil and can't be detained.

However, he says he's not shocked that some Canadians are just opting to skip any U.S. travel

Two women sitting in a busy restaurant.
Mooney's immigration lawyer Len Saunders said her case is scaring Canadian travellers. "It has a huge chilling effect on Canadians going to the United States," he said. (Submitted by Alexis Eagles)

Work visa trouble

Mooney first hit immigration trouble last spring. She'd applied for her work visa at the Blaine, Wash., border office and was denied. The officer had noticed a missing employer letterhead.

She tried again at the San Diego border in April of 2024. The visa was issued without a problem, so she returned to California and worked.

Mooney says she didn't have a problem again — despite multiple border crossings — until she headed back into the U.S. after a visit to family in November.

Upon her return, she says a border agent told her that her visa had been improperly processed. She was interrogated and that work visa was revoked, after border officials noted her product contained hemp.

After a few months in Canada, she was offered another job and says she was told by another lawyer that it was acceptable to try to reapply.

"The worst that I thought would happen is that I would get denied," she said.

She headed to the San Diego immigration office that first processed her visa on March 3. After hours there explaining her situation, she says the officer told her she'd have to reapply through a consulate. Then Mooney says the female officer added: "You didn't do anything wrong, you are not in trouble, you are not a criminal."

She was told they'd have to send her back to Canada. But as Mooney sat searching for flights home on her phone she says that a man appeared and told her to come with him.

She knew something was way off when they pulled the shoelaces from her sneakers.

"Later I found out that's so you don't hang yourself in jail," said Mooney.

An officer with the words 'OFFICER ICE' on his back is seen in front of a house.
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that Mooney was processed in light of an executive order signed on Jan. 21. (Gregory Bull/The Associated Press)

CBC News reached out to U.S. officials for more details about her case.

A statement from Sandra Grisolia of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement explained that Mooney was processed in accordance with the "Securing Our Borders" Executive Order dated Jan. 21.

It states that all aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the U.S., regardless of nationality.

Saunders says that Mooney plans to appeal her revoked visa and loves the U.S. She was pursuing a marketing career there selling a hemp-infused water product – after running bars and restaurants in Vancouver.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yvette Brend

CBC journalist

Yvette Brend works in Vancouver on all CBC platforms. Her investigative work has spanned floods, fires, cryptocurrency deaths, police shootings and infection control in hospitals. “My husband came home a stranger,” an intimate look at PTSD, won CBC's first Jack Webster City Mike Award. A multi-platform look at opioid abuse survivors won a Gabriel Award in 2024. Got a tip? Yvette.Brend@cbc.ca

With files from CBC News