A Canadian businesswoman who was arrested in the United States by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents over an incomplete visa is being held in “inhumane” conditions in an Arizona detention center, according to her family, who have now gone public in an attempt to secure her release.
Jasmine Mooney, 35, co-founder of the Holy! Water health drink brand, was detained after crossing the San Ysidro border between Mexico and San Diego on March 3. She was carrying an incomplete application for a new Trade NAFTA (TN) work visa after her first was unexpectedly revoked, according to her mother, Alexis Eagles.
Eagles said her daughter was subsequently held for three nights at the border before being transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Centre in San Diego for three more.
An online tracking system then indicated Mooney had been released, only for it to emerge that she had been transferred to the San Luis Detention Center in Arizona.
Mooney, speaking to ABC’s 10 News San Diego from the latter facility, said: “Every single guard that sees me is like ‘What are you doing here? I don’t understand – you’re Canadian. How are you here?’”
She said of her time at the Otay Mesa facility: “I was put in a cell, and I had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, with an aluminum foil wrapped over my body like a dead body for two and a half days.”
Mooney said that she and 30 other women were then relocated to Arizona in the middle of the night, adding: “We were up for 24 hours wrapped in chains.”
“I have never in my life seen anything so inhumane,” she said of conditions in the San Luis center.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has so far declined to say on what precise grounds Mooney was detained, citing privacy restrictions, according to 10 News. However, they did say the agency routinely prevents travelers from entering the country on 60 different grounds, adding that it treats all travelers with integrity, respect and professionalism.
Mooney is understood to have moved to Los Angeles, California, in the summer 2024 to work on her water venture on a three-year TN work visa. However, her authorization was revoked by a customs officer at Vancouver airport in November when she attempted to return to L.A. after visiting her family in British Columbia.
“They told me I was unprofessional because I didn’t have a proper letterhead on my paperwork,” she explained.
Eagles said her daughter had entered the U.S. via Mexico when she was granted her first visa and had been attempting to do the same this time.
“We have no issue with her being denied entry, we have no issue with her initially being detained,” she said.
“But we have a huge issue with the inhumane treatment she is receiving and that she knows nothing, has not been charged and has not been able to speak with us directly.”
Mooney’s Chicago-based business partner BJ McCaslin told Postmedia News: “It seems like a nightmare and living hell.
“I don’t know how someone in her position can be subject to this, and not released immediately once they found out the circumstances.”
McCaslin added: “She’s definitely not a criminal. She [was] coming to a health-food product exposition [in Anaheim].
“She’s an upstanding person who is very well-respected in our industry.
“I fully support the American government, but I’m very fearful for my friend.”
Brittany Kors, Mooney’s best friend, told 10 News: “I just feel really helpless… We don’t know what the next steps are. We don’t even know the reason why they are holding her there.”
Global Affairs Canada has said it is “aware of the detention of a Canadian citizen in Arizona. Consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information and to provide consular assistance.
“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.”
