Irish tourist jailed in the US for overstaying his visa by just 3 days

Irish Daily Mirror

6 days ago

An Irish tourist says 'nobody is safe' after being jailed in the US for overstaying his visa by just three days.
Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker from Ireland, went to West Virginia last year to visit his girlfriend. He used a visa waiver, which lets tourists stay in the US for up to 90 days.
Thomas was supposed to fly back to Ireland in December, but a health problem stopped him from travelling. Just three days after his allowed stay ended, a run-in with police led to him being arrested by US immigration officials (ICE).
While visiting his girlfriend Malone's family in Savannah, Georgia, Thomas experienced a mental health episode. After a conflict in their hotel room, someone called the police. Though Malone didn't support the charge, Thomas was arrested for allegedly 'falsely imprisoning' her.
He was released on bond but was then detained by U.S. immigration authorities and taken to an ICE facility 100 miles away in Folkston, Georgia.
Thomas said he was held in three different detention centres and spent about 100 days in custody without knowing when he would be released.
Even though he agreed to leave the US right away, he remained in detention after Donald Trump became president and increased immigration enforcement.
'Nobody is safe from the system if they get pulled into it,' said Thomas, in a recent interview with The Guardian newspaper from his home in Ireland, a few months after his release.
Thomas asked to be identified by a nickname because he's afraid of future problems with U.S. immigration. US President, Donald Trump. (Image: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images) The badge of a Customs and Border Protection agent. (Image: Getty Images)
At one point, he was sent to a federal prison meant for criminals, even though his only issue was overstaying his visa.
In mid-February, after about two months in detention, he and about 50 others were told they were being moved. Thinking he was finally going home, Thomas called his family with the good news.
Instead, he was shackled at the wrists, waist, and legs, and taken on a four-hour ride to a prison in Atlanta, run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BoP).
Thomas said the prison conditions were even worse than ICE facilities. He described dirty mattresses, roaches and mice, missing ladders on bunk beds, and people climbing to the top bunks.
He got a jumpsuit but no shirt, and was given old, torn underwear with brown stains.
Some jumpsuits had holes and what looked like blood on them.
They received only one roll of toilet paper per week, and toilets could only be flushed three times an hour.
The food was 'disgusting slop'—strange meat with bones and other things in it—and he was often cold and hungry with just a thin blanket.
'The staff didn't know why we were there and they were treating us exactly as they would treat BoP prisoners, and they told us that,' Thomas said. 'We were treated less than human.
They weren't prepared for us at all,' Thomas said.
The Guardian reports it's unclear why Thomas was jailed for so long for a minor immigration violation.
'It seems completely outlandish that they would detain someone for three months because he overstayed a visa for a medical reason,' said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, who is not involved in his case.
'It is such a waste of time and money at a time when we're hearing constantly about how the government wants to cut expenses. It seems like a completely incomprehensible, punitive detention.'
ICE, she added, was 'creating its own crisis of overcrowding'.
Thomas was sent back to Ireland in March and was told he was banned from entering the US for ten years.
Thomas had previously travelled to the US frequently for work, but now questions if he'll ever be allowed to return: 'This will be a lifelong burden.'
Malone, his girlfriend, said she plans to move to Ireland to live with him: 'It's not an option for him to come here and I don't want to be in America anymore.'
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