For roughly 100 days, Thomas says he faced harsh detention conditions, despite agreeing to deportation

Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia to visit his girlfriend last fall. It was one of many trips he had taken to the US, and he was authorized to travel under a visa waiver program that allows tourists to stay in the country for 90 days.

He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody.

From there, what should have been a minor incident became a nightmarish ordeal: he was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was being held – or when he’d get out.

  • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 hours ago

    On that point we will simply have to disagree. It is much more dangerous legally for someone to visit America on a visa than it is to visit Mexico on one right now.

    I don’t mean to project anything, I’m just trying to understand the undercurrent of hostility that I have felt from your replies, amigo.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      The “undercurrent of hostility” exists only in your imagination. I just stated some facts that contradict the assertion, which I think is fair to say is much more hostile in nature than anything I wrote, ironically.

      I certainly never compared Mexico or anything in it to feces, anyway.

      • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 hours ago

        One of the nice things about being American is that we still have the right to call our own country feces, just like you have the right to disagree with me.

        That said, I feel like we’ve both expressed ourselves here, so I’m just going to move on. Hope you have a good week, dude.