Immigration experts are warning Canadians to make sure they have the correct forms and documentation if they want to cross the border into the United States.
This comes after a Canadian woman was detained by U.S. border officials earlier this month.
Jasmine Mooney, originally from Vancouver, tried to enter the U.S. from Mexico at the San Diego border last Monday.
“I was reapplying for my work visa and with no warning about what was about to happen I was taken by ICE,” Mooney told an ABC News 10 San Diego reporter from the detention centre where she is being held.
ICE stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and officers enforce federal laws governing border control, customs, trade, and immigration.
Mooney was applying for a TN Visa, which is a nonimmigrant visa that allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the United States in specific professional occupations.
She is the founder of a water health drink brand and told ABC News 10 San Diego that ICE agents told her she was “unprofessional” because she did not have a proper letterhead.
Mooney moved to Los Angeles in summer 2024, working on her business with a three-year work visa, which she applied for successfully by entering the U.S. from Mexico. She was trying to do the same thing after her first visa was unexpectedly revoked in November.
Mooney’s mother, Alexis Eagles, said her daughter was held for three nights at the border before being transferred, while handcuffed and in chains, to a detention centre in San Diego and later moved to a facility in Arizona.
“I climb into my warm bed every evening feeling guilty because I know my daughter is in a concrete cell without even a blanket,” Eagles told Global News from her Abbotsford, B.C., home.
Mooney told ABC News 10 San Diego that she was put in a cell and had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, pillow and there are other girls and women there that have been there for weeks and have not been told anything.
“We were up for 24 hours wrapped in chains,” Mooney said.
Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer based in Blaine, Wash., told Global News that he is not Mooney’s attorney but he did speak to her a few weeks ago after being referred by a fellow client.
He said he is familiar with the San Ysidro Port of Entry and has referred clients who are in that area to cross into Mexico and then come back in order to get their visas renewed.
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But Saunders said he advised Mooney against going there.
“When she told me she was going there, I advised her not to, only because of the current political climate,” he said.
“So I said to her, I would feel more comfortable if you were my client doing one of the local ports of entry here, whether it’s Blaine or Vancouver airport.”
Saunders said Mooney told him she had been to that border crossing before and everything was fine and she was confident about getting the visa.
“I said to her, I just don’t have a good feeling right now going anywhere on the southern border, given, you know, the new administration,” Saunders said.
About a week later, he said he received a call from one of her friends that Mooney was in a detention centre in Otay Mesa in San Diego.
“To begin with, I was kind of shocked because normally if someone gets their visa denied, they just, you know, are bounced back to Canada or if they’re down on the southern border, they tell them to, you know, come back a different day with the right documentation,” Saunders said.
“So then I heard a few days later that she was being released from custody, but that wasn’t the fact, she was being moved from Southern California to Arizona to a larger detention facility. So that’s when I told her friend, my client, this may be a long haul. I said, this may take months for her to get out of custody.”
Saunders said now that Mooney is in a detention centre, the process to be released can be a long one.
“They have to put her in front of an immigration judge,” he said.
“The judge then has to make a decision. So, you know, she’s not at the point where she can just ask to go back to Canada. She has to go through a lengthy procedure.”
Despite Mooney being a Canadian citizen, Saunders said it almost seems as if the Trump administration is making an example of her situation.
“It’s shocking that the government resources would be used against a Canadian who has no past criminal history, no immigration violations,” he said.
Saunders said Canadians should be cautious when entering the United States at this time.
Lawyer and policy analyst, Richard Kurland, echoed Saunders’ warning, saying many people don’t realize what being detained looks like.
“Foreign nationals have no right to be in a country,” he said.
“It’s a privilege if they’re allowed in. And foreign nationals do not enjoy the same rights and privileges as citizens when it comes to detention. There’s no standard when it comes to foreign nationals.”
Kurland said he is not surprised to hear of the horrible conditions Mooney is in with poor bathroom facilities and lights that are on for 24 hours.
It sends a message to “would-be border jumpers” that if they are caught, it won’t be pleasant, he added.
“Don’t get it wrong at the border,” Kurland said. “Protect yourself. Always be nice and polite with a border officer before they cut you loose and put you in cargo in some immigration detention centre.”
Kurland said during Trump’s first administration, immigration issues were used for purposes of furthering the free trade negotiations and the same thing is happening now.
“Don’t argue, don’t argue, don’t argue,” he said. “If an American officer says something, that’s it. If you raise your voice, if you don’t answer directly and truthfully, you risk detention. And as people know who’ve been there, if you’re a passenger, you’re in cargo after that — in some immigration detention centre that treats you as cargo and worse.”
B.C. Premier David Eby said he did not know all the details of the case but that Mooney’s situation is a “terrible” one.
“The federal government should be doing all they can through diplomatic channels to get her returned to Canada as quickly as possible,” he said.
“It certainly reinforces the anxiety that many British Columbians have and many Canadians have about our relationship with the United States right now and the unpredictability of this administration in its actions.”
Global Affairs Canada 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,” the department said in a statement.
“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.”
Movie industry website IMDB shows Mooney has film credits in movies as recent as 2015’s Badge of Honor, as well as American Pie Presents: The Book of Love and Kid Cannabis.
In 2019, Mooney was named one of BC Business magazine’s “30 under 30” young businesspeople to watch for her involvement in Vancouver’s Banter Room restaurant.
— with files from The Canadian Press
