@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbtA British tourist has been detained by ICE and is currently incarcerated in Washington ...
The U.S. is not a safe place to travel anymore.
https://bsky.app/profile/jenniferlcroft.bsky.social/post/3ljxjdhfv4s22
https://laragelya.substack.com/p/ice-has-captured-and-detained-a-british
@Natasha_Jay Avoid travel to fascist USA. #StayAwayFromUSA
@j_g_fitzgerald @Natasha_Jay
SERIOUSLY. Avoid Travel to the United States.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/04/world/german-detained-ice-intl-latam/index.html
@Natasha_Jay Shocking, but not surprising these days. Lots of offers of help with funds, visits and contacting a lawyer in the Tacoma area for her though on bluesky, so hopefully there'll be better news soon.
@Natasha_Jay Not to make light of a horrible situation, but is there anything quite as British as "A friend is sending funds so she can buy basic necessities such as tea"
@losttourist @Natasha_Jay
Americans aren't given tea in prison? Monsters! It is a fundamental human right. A basic necessity for a civilised society.
@huxley @losttourist @Natasha_Jay
I would classify American "tea" as cruel and unusual punishment.
@andycymro Proper tea is not prepared with cold harbour water!
@wonka @andycymro @losttourist @Natasha_Jay
Proper tea is theft!
@huxley @losttourist @Natasha_Jay As the Israeli authorities tell prisoners after starving and torturing them - "people are free to file a compliant".
@Natasha_Jay I’m wondering what “an incorrect visa” is. As murricans we have no idea what people need to have to come here, but once were ecumenical with Brits. Every day here I feel more outraged and sad, with a sense of impending doom, as if on a melting iceberg calved off from the mother.
@gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay It used to be that if your paperwork wasn't 100% in order then US Immigration officials would simply stamp your passport "entry refused" and put you on the first plane back to your home country.
Or more likely (especially if you were polite & white) if the mistake was a very small one they'd let you in anyway.
And it works both ways, I know a number of Americans who have been refused entry to Britain for various reasons to do with invalid visas or incomplete paperwork.
But this incarceration thing that seems to be happening now is a whole new ballgame, at least for white citizens of western European countries.
@losttourist @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay I'm not sure this kind of thing is completely new. I remember a case a number of years ago where a French tourist accidentally crossed the Canada-US border in the pre-Trump era and was thrown in a cell. My sense is that the US has been increasingly odd about its borders since 9-11.
@losttourist @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay apologies, not from the pre-Trump era but from Trump 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/jogger-detained-us-border-cedella-roman-immigration-ordeal
@losttourist @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay She was already in the USA and got denied at the border going into Canada. Then she tried to turn around and got tagged as an illegal immigrant--I'm assuming she overstayed.
So she didn't come here and get thrown in prison trying to enter. She fucked up in some way that put her here, in the country, with a status that is considered "illegal" and in the hands of ICE.
@uint8_t@chaos.social@losttourist @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay US border cops can deny any non-US-citizen‘s entry and they don’t even need to give a reason. Previously people were put onto the first plane and sent back, now it seems they chose more punishment instead.
@losttourist @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay It's not. Dubya did it as well.
@KalenXI@mastodon.social@gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay Same. I didn’t think a UK citizen needed a visa to enter either the US or Canada. As far as I can tell the UK is still on both countries visa waiver program.
@KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay yeah that's a bit strange. UK passport holders don't need a visa to enter Canada.
@revndm@queer.cool@ottaross @KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay @cainmark it may be because she’s a UK citizen entering the US from Canada, as opposed to directly from the UK. in any case, I hope she and the German tourists are released soon and that are able to extract…let’s call it justice.
@revndm read up a little on the gov website, and apparently it's even more permissive at a land border. Flying in you need a web-based pre-filing in place, but at land border UK citizens can just waltz in. They do need to ensure they're not going to do work (even unpaid), funds for accommodation and have a ticket home.
Sounds like she violated the no-work clause with a domestic work gig planned. Still, US gestapo tactics are cruel and pointless. @KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay @cainmark
@revndm@queer.cool@ottaross @KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay @cainmark truly idiotic. All the effort we put into enforcing invisible lines to prevent people from doing what our ancestors did not too many hundreds of years ago.
@pmdj@mstdn.social@KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay So, when we did a big North America trip 10 years ago, we researched the land crossing situation in advance, and it was tricky.
At the time, with a British passport, you could enter Canada from outside North America without a visa for up to 6 months.
Visa-free travel in the USA was possible for 3 months.
Notice the edge case? The rule about Canada didn't apply when entering from the US. In that case, you were limited by the rest of your US visa waiver.
@pmdj@mstdn.social@KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay Given the article talks about being 4 months into her trip, I suspect she's been in the US on an extended travel permit/visa of some sort. That means she's not on an ESTA visa waiver, and therefore needs a separate permit for Canada, for which she probably should have applied before entering North America.
Just to be clear - I don't think the US should have jailed her over this, and Canada probably ought to loosen their rules on this given the US situation.
@pmdj@mstdn.social@KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay (I know for a fact that *some* of the details have changed in the interim - you now need to complete an ESTA before entering the US from Canada by land or sea, whereas at the time we just walked up to the CBP checkpoint at the station in Vancouver BC before boarding the train. But I suspect she's run afoul of an edge case in the rules that broadly resembles the above. And at least in the US, enforcement has clearly been ratcheted up a few notches.)
@KalenXI@mastodon.social@pmdj @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay Ah ok. I thought it meant her trip was 4 months total not that she was 4 months into a longer trip and I didn’t realize that the waiver countdown doesn’t restart once you enter Canada.
@pmdj@mstdn.social@KalenXI @gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay You might be right on the 4 month total. If she was still within the 3 months at the time of attempted crossing, you'd have hoped for the Canadian border official to give her a chance to rebook her flight back to Europe to be within the US visa waiver period there and then or something like that. Especially considering they'd have known what would happen to her when she attempted to re-enter the US.
But even if you do everything by the book they can be shits
@gentlegardener @Natasha_Jay If you read it, she was actually in USA a while and then Canada denied her VISA. So it was something to do with that. I wouldn't know that as an American because I don't need one to go there currently.
It seems she may have taken too long because then she was deemed illegal trying to come back in to the USA. If so, that was a big mistake. The USA is NOT friendly about this sort of thing. I myself, screwing up border crossing going into Canada, almost got stuck.
@Natasha_Jay at this point what help will work? Lawyer each side us and canada ?
Judging or inferring from her instagram she departed uk for USA January Guess your trip has to be linear and one way. Re entry either side? To ing and fro ing not allowed. ?
Said it before, but, again US is not safe to travel to. Especially if you’re a #poc , #woman , or have ever advocated for #democracy
Treat the US as you would have treated a trip to communist #Russia or Hitlerian Germany.
#Boycottslavery
#boycottamerica
#boycottusa
#boycottnazi
#boycotttexas
#boycottflorida
#boycottdeepsouth
#boycottisrael
@Natasha_Jay@nilsskirnir
Or especially trans, if having changed gender on your passport, I'd politely add. Current Federal guidance could result in you being barred from the US for life. Germany is the first country I've seen have the guts to put out a travel advisory on this ...
Or changed your surname on your passport, but had social media or other documents in your birth name.
US runs AI checks on the above.
@Natasha_Jay
2 Germans too. Since weeks without apparent reason
@matthias_weber
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io@Natasha_Jay also happened to a German tourist (who's hopefully on their way home soon)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/ice-german-tourist-detained-immigration
@thisismissem @Natasha_Jay No, the woman has been detained for over 6 weeks now. Still no progress. The man for 2 weeks.
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io@nakal @Natasha_Jay I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with here, but I'm saying this has happened to multiple people from multiple nationalities, and in the case of the German tourist, Jessica, after something like 8 weeks in detention (since 25th January) she might be on her way home soon.
That was the last update I saw through friends (some of whom I think know her)
@thisismissem @Natasha_Jay It sounded like they are to be released soon. I misunderstood. Sorry.
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io@nakal @Natasha_Jay I don't know about the british person, but the last update I heard from friends who may know Jessica was a post about her hopefully being sent home around about now.
@Natasha_Jay here’s what is needed per uk.gov to come here. To the states.
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa/entry-requirements
@Natasha_Jay
Unless the regimes' idea is to alienate all previous allies and countries that are agnostic, this is lunacy.
@ideogram @Natasha_Jay I think that is their goal
If you wouldn’t go touring in North Korea, don’t visit the US. US has been particularly hard on women tourists of childbearing age and women traveling alone
#Boycottsexism
#boycottamerica
#boycottusa
#boycottnazi
#boycotttexas
#boycottflorida
#boycottdeepsouth
#boycottisrael
@Natasha_Jay what worries me is that these stories of white people being detained (like the two German tourists) must mean there is a massive number of non-white, not polite, not middle class people that are trapped in the system but we don't hear about them because it's just business as usual.
Not that these people don't deserve attention and justice as well, and I hope they are freed as soon as possible.
2007
@Zumbador @Natasha_Jay According to their website's .../spotlight/statistics page, ICE arrests around 200,000 to 300,000 people every year. The vast majority are not Western European citizens, although hundreds are/were even in previous years (341 from the UK in '21 - '24). Surely many non-white UK and German citizens have been detained in the past decade or so with no press coverage and no one saying "it's now not safe"
@Natasha_Jay i wilkl try and make her story viral on reddit
@Natasha_Jay has anyone seen an active database of detained individuals? #AbolishICE
@Natasha_Jay again, a woman. USA is not a country for visitors any longer.
Ich persönlich betrete kein Land in dem die Todesstrafe angewendet wird.
@Natasha_Jay I bet they won't be sending her to one of the concentration camps where they send my people.