A woman from New Zealand who was detained by US immigration with her young son at the US-Canada border feared she was being kidnapped.
Sarah Shaw, 33, and her six year-old were detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on 24 July when she drove her two eldest children to Vancouver airport in British Columbia for a direct flight to New Zealand to visit their grandparents on a holiday.
However, the mother and son were detained when they tried to cross the border to re-enter the US, where she was staying for over three years and is working as a youth counsellor at a juvenile detention facility in Washington.
“They are confined in horrible, isolated conditions with extremely limited access to communicate with legal counsel and bordering abuse,” her friend Victoria Besancon, who is trying to raise money to secure her release, said.
She said Ms Shaw initially thought she was being kidnapped as they were bundled into a white van with no markings at the Canadian border.
“I remember her on the phone being absolutely panicked. She originally thought she was being kidnapped, she didn’t even realise she was being detained originally,” Ms Besancon told RNZ.
“They were put into a giant white van, there were no markers on it, and not a lot was explained to them, so she was absolutely terrified.”
She claims Ms Shaw has not been given formal charge paperwork, has not been added to ICE’s detainee locator system, and has been denied the chance to present evidence of her legal status.
She said her friend has been forced to spend what little commissary funds she has on basic items such as toothbrushes and shampoo for her son.
“She is in a locked room with five bunk beds, she’s allowed to walk around the facility from 8am to 8pm, but outside of that she is locked in a cell with other families.”
Aside from the staff, she and her son are the only English speakers, calling it “kind of like being in jail”.
Ms Shaw is among the many foreign nationals who have ended up in detention centres as part of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown on immigrants. Centres that stretch between Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi have been dubbed Detention Alley.
Ms Shaw’s lawyer, Minda Thorward, told local media she had a temporary immigration document which made her eligible for re-entry into the US, but there was an “administrative error” with it.
The Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), representing Ms Shaw, has demanded her release.
“The trauma this has already caused for her and her son may never be healed,” said Mike Yestramski, the union’s president, who also works as a psychiatric social worker at Western State hospital.
He said the union “vehemently opposes ICE practices” and Mr Trump’s immigration policies.
New Zealand’s foreign affairs ministry said they are in contact with Ms Shaw but did not comment further.
A British tourist, Rebecca Burke, a 28-year-old graphic artist from Monmouthshire, endured a 19-day detention in a US facility after a visa mix-up.
The Independent has reached out to ICE for a comment.
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