Summary
Canadian citizen Jasmine Mooney was detained by ICE for two weeks despite having a valid U.S. work visa. Stopped at the San Diego border, she was abruptly arrested, denied legal counsel, and held in freezing cells before being transferred to a private detention center.
She witnessed systemic inefficiencies, inhumane conditions, and detainees trapped in bureaucratic limbo.
After media attention and legal intervention, Mooney was released.
Her experience highlights the profit-driven nature of private detention centers and the broader failures of U.S. immigration enforcement under Trump’s administration.
It felt like you were kidnapped because you WERE
Sure wouldn’t be a shame if something happens to Damon Hininger, current CEO of Core Civic.
“I’ve worked at CoreCivic for 32 years, and this is truly one of the most exciting periods of my career,” CEO Damon Hininger said on the company’s earnings call.
Throw these parasites in their own prisons.
She was abducted and tortured by the US government. That’s the plain, simple, horrific truth.
ICE is our very own Gestapo.
never change leemy.
24 hour light is considered torture. Imprisoning someone without telling them why, how long, or what should happen next is also considered torture. They are literal torture techniques practiced in countries without human rights.
Then there’s the stories of people needing medical attention after border patrol “interrogated” them.
This. Is. Not. Normal.
Exactly. Our detention facilities are literally designed for torture. People will say they are simply built cheaply or carelessly, but I don’t buy it. These places are specifically designed to maximize psychological suffering. And there is absolutely no reason why they need to be that way.
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[N]o matter how flawed the system, how cruel the circumstances, humanity will always shine through.
Even in the darkest places, within the most broken systems, humanity persists. Sometimes, it reveals itself in the smallest, most unexpected acts of kindness: a shared meal, a whispered prayer, a hand reaching out in the dark. We are defined by the love we extend, the courage we summon and the truths we are willing to tell.
idk this woman, but I’m so proud of her for using this media attention to do the right thing in a horrific situation.
The pictures of letters her cellmates gave her to get to their families, the moment where a wife sees her husband in the detention cells after being separated with no contact for weeks, the dehumanizing assembly line pregnancy tests.
It’s a hard fucking read, but everyone should take 10-15 minutes and read the whole thing. This is basic knowledge of the system everyone in the world should be aware of, told by someone who has less to fear in reprisals than most of the folk who manage to escape.
This is the very significant part:
The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.
Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.
At this point Canada should be playing hard ball. Ban all visas from anyone working for those companies, or anyone who delivers services to those companies for as long as they work for those companies. If they lie about who they work for, the ban is permanent and they personally are not allowed to set foot in Canada ever.
Why would those employees ever go to Canada to work or study (to need visas). There’s nothing to swing at.
People already bitch about not being able to go to Canada because they got a DUI. This is will absolutely cause someone’s vacation plans to be fucked up. But more importantly this should be a policy of the EU and Mexico too.
Afaik place of employment doesn’t come up when they scan the passport. Criminal records? Yes.
There’s more employees than just the border guards themselves. There’s the HR, the IT, Accountants, Legal etc etc. Block all of them. If those services are contracted out, ban their workers as well. Might be a bit troublesome with companies like Amazon or Microsoft, but since you’re banning individual workers rather than whole companies it might work out a little easier.
Make it so the deal is “If you associate with this company and you aren’t a Canadian citizen, you are personally not allowed to enter Canada”
Who ever said it’s limited to guards? The whole point is why would they being going to Canada for work or study, which is what requires a visa. You don’t just meander over the border for a day of work.
If you’re working around the northern border, then yeah, you probably go into Canada once in a while.
Most Americans don’t even have a passport. And even if they did, you don’t need a visa for vacations to Canada. He is limiting this to Visas which means work and study.
You absolutely need a visa. Just because you don’t personally have to apply does not mean you aren’t on a visa. And Canada already has a blacklist at the border. Adding more names is super easy.
You do not need a Canadian passport, a Canadian visa or an eTA to enter Canada if you are travelling with a valid U.S. passport.
https://ircc.canada.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=1116&top=16
For tourist visits to Canada of less than 180 days, U.S. citizens do not need visas. Other types of travel generally require visas. Visit the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website for current information.
If a doctor has his license suspended and is not able to practice medicine in a normal hospital/doctors office, they are allowed to keep practicing medicine in prison systems. Poof, cut the costs of real medical doctors by employing those no one else can/will.
It felt like a kidnapping because it was factually a kidnapping.
What an f’ing disgrace. She went to an American government office to apply legally for a visa. The absolute worst consequence should have been “we’re sorry, we can’t process your Visa and you’ll need to return to your home country.”
That’s it.
This is a minor point compared to her suffering, but also, what an f’ing waste of taxpayer money. Some private facilities got good money I’m sure to lock this innocent lady up.
We were reminded by the last two months or so that it’s only a waste of taxpayer money if it doesn’t go directly to the pocket of some rich dude.
“rich dude.”
Hey, whoa whoa whoa, there are plenty of elitest female grifters as well! Equal’ish opportunity! (only for grifting tho).
/s
Yes, that’s detailed at the end of the article.
I’m only like half way through. This one makes me see enough red I’m having to read it in chunks. Just found out about the poor pastors JFC take a wrong turn and straight to jail and it’s not funny.
edit: It just gets worse and worse. In a halfway decent world reading this story would feel like jumping the shark not business as usual.
No, it’s not meant to be funny. It should be encouraging us to learn about explosives.
Wow, what a story. The kind of thing you’d expect from a 3rd world shithole country which I guess the USA is becoming.
Inhabitant of a 3rd world country here
I don’t think “kidnapped and tortured by the government” is a thing we’ve done much of since the US stopped funding our far right dictatorship in the 80s (and the military immediately fucked off and ‘let democracy take its course’ when the funding dried up).
… Let us not speak of what our criminal factions get up to though.
So I’ve always wondered,
Are criminal factions avoidable in whatever country that is?
Like here in the US we always hear random horror stories about Mexican cartels, but we almost never hear about crimes elsewhere in the world. Honestly, I’ve kind of assumed that crime is a made up American thing to put minorities in jail.
The country is Brazil.
If you are unfortunate enough to live in the favelas (aka: Very very poor in a big city), you’ll be under their thrall.
But the little secret is that… They end up being not that different from the government. They have their own ‘laws’, and if you follow them, you’ll be left alone. Their protection rackets become like taxes, except instead of going to jail for not paying, you’ll get tortured – And you might even benefit from them in a way.
A friend of mine tells a story about doing social work in a favela, and how after years of neglect from the government resulting in kids from the place not getting vaccinated, the local crimelord bought the vaccines with his own money and had his own paralell vaccination campaign for everyone that was properly paying their protection money. Hopefully you won’t catch a stray bullet when the illegal liege lord of your neighbourhood-fiefdom is at war with the police or another neighbourhood-fiefdom’s illegal lord for the umpteenth time that year.
If you are not in the favela…
… Well… If you buy weed from a dealer or borrow money from illegal lenders and don’t pay your bills, they’ll probably abduct you and break your legs.
If you do none of those things… You might get pickpocketed or mugged, but that is honestly the extent of interactions that I, a rich boy from the third world, have had with the criminal factions of my country. Muggings. Being threatened and told to hand over my phone (which I did, I’m not stupid). Having a gameboy swiped from my bag while at an anime con.
So it’s basically just like the US.
Except I can probably be mugged in any city over 50k. Pickpocketing I’ve only really known about in big cities.
Honestly? That sounds no different than living in the lowest income areas in the US.
That was my thought
“Honestly, I’ve kind of assumed that crime is a made up American thing to put minorities in jail.”
It’s definitely not made up, although it may be exaggerated and positioned to drive fear.
I’ve been to a couple dozen countries at this point, primarily but not exclusively in low and medium low income countries.
Based on my experience (which is, in sum total, still pretty limited), organized crime groups will often try to avoid stirring up trouble with tourists and expats as incidents can generate too much heat and could hurt too many wallets.
I also got the impression that organized crime groups in most countries typically try to avoid stirring up too much stuff with locals as that too can draw heat. This is assuming that the locals likewise try to avoid stirring things up with organized crime members.
People living in Mexico may in many cases may be more exposed. Then you’ve got failed and near failed states like the DRC where things are really, really dire.
There often are areas that are best to avoid and if you do go there, you’ll want to keep a low profile. This is true in the USA, parts of Europe, and many low and medium low income countries. I’ve ended up in some pretty shady areas through life but never had anything happen. That said, the risks are heightened.
There are also safe low and middle income countries that are, at least with violent crime, much safer than the USA and other high income countries. Examples: Malaysia (upper middle income), Vietnam, Costa Rica.
1st/2nd/3rd world terminology becoming increasingly outdated as America becomes aligned with Russia and Europe and Canada distance themselves.
The “correct” modern terms are Global North and Global South. But 1st/2nd/3rd are taking on a new meaning of Highly Developed/Developing/Undeveloped. Cold War era political scientists are raging against it but it’s much more easily understood than Global North and Global South which also extend the idea that Northern countries are superior. (The given reasoning is that Northern countries are better developed on average, but come on…)
Yeah, I was thinking that myself as I wrote my comment.
Has been for quite a while, it’s just that Americans have been told they’re number 1 for so long and most of them don’t travel so they don’t see anything else.
I highly recommend foreign travel. For example Colombia seems to be completely developed in some places and stuck in the 1950’s in other places.
Excuse me, that’s my exceptionalism you’re insulting right now! *Cackles and coughs in underinsured*
She actually has had it better than a lot of people on the last Trump administration…
I haven’t done any international travel for the last few years, but I used to do it a decent amount for work, and lemme tell you: the worst part of those trips wasn’t the long / cramped plane flights; it was going through US customs.
I’m a US citizen, but every time I went through those lines, it felt like I was passing through a military checkpoint into occupied territory. Every time I went through that experience, it made me hate what our country has become just that little bit more.
Traveled to Rome recently (as US citizen). Walked no more than 10 minutes from the gate, was 5th in line to one of a half dozen or so automated camera/scanner customs gates, and cleared customs within 15 minutes of landing.
Returned to the US, walked for 20 minutes through a maze of twisty passages to get to the customs hall, where I stood in line for another 30 minutes to get to one of a half dozen or so checkpoints where an agent scanned my passport, told me to stare at the camera, and eventually, maybe even grudgingly, welcomed me home.
The last time I came through American customs, it was when I was returning from a conference in Spain, and a colleague of mine got detained for 3 hours because he “looked suspicious”. Man’s a fucking engineer, with credentials out the wazoo, but apparently he fidgeted in line or something. Sitting there in the little space available just anxiously waiting for them to release him was harrowing, but I can’t even imagine what he went through. Nobody would tell me shit; in fact, the more I asked about him, the more it felt like they were treating me like a suspect. If they’d ended up deciding that he didn’t pass the sniff test, they could have taken him anywhere, and nobody would know a fucking thing about it for God knows how long.
Man, I’m getting sweaty just reliving that. Fuck I hate this country sometimes.
having been to countries some consider third world shitholes, it’s far worse (edit: in the USA) IMO.
In many low income countries this would have been a $50 bribe and 5 minutes to resolve (which could mean being deported).
Freezing cells are actual torture
There is a place for Capitalism. Prisons, Hospitals, Insurance, police and mental health facilities, to name a few, are not the place.
There is a place… in hell
It is if you’re a billionaire and want to be an even bigger billionaire.
It remembers me to that Fry and Laurie bit: https://youtu.be/oy3iTVwJmxk (starts by 0:28)
Gotta love (A Bit of) Fry and Laurie.
Thanks for the laughs 😝
