Case of Irish tourist detained in US after outstaying visa by three days 'disgraceful'
Brian O'Dwyer, a veteran Irish-American lawyer and a well-known immigration activist, told
The Journal
: 'The idea is to be as mean spirited, as cruel as you can be, so to discourage people from from overstaying their visas.
'It's an absolutely horrendous way, and it's frankly disgraceful, but it is certainly what's happening right now.'
According to
The Guardian newspaper
, the man spent two months in a detention centre run by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) before being moved to a federal prison. He returned to Ireland in March.
'Thomas', who spoke to the newspaper anonymously, said that while visiting his girlfriend in the states, he tore his calf and was told by a doctor not to travel for eight to 12 weeks, which meant he had to remain in the US until slightly after his visa expired.
He said he sought an extension from the Irish and American embassies and the Department of Homeland Security, but did not hear back from them.
After suffering a mental health episode in a hotel room with his girlfriend, police were called and Thomas was taken to jail. When he was released on bond, he was picked up by US immigration authorities and taken to an ICE processing centre in Georgia.
On 17 December, he signed a form agreeing to be removed from the US, but instead of being deported, he remained in custody after Donald Trump took office and was unable to get answers as to why ICE were still keeping him in custody.
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In February, around two months after he was detained, he was moved from Georgia to a prison in Atlanta which houses criminal defendants on federal charges. Thomas told The Guardian that the conditions here were worse than in Georgia.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has been contacted by
The Journal
for comment.
Speaking to
The Journal
, O'Dwyer said he was 'not surprised' to hear about the case.
'This is not unusual for what has basically become a very cruel way of enforcing the law in the United States right now,' he said.
Since he came into office, US President Donald Trump has been pouring resources into arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants as he aims to carry out the immigration purge that was promised during his presidential campaign.
Today,
the Washington Post
is reporting that immigrants who arrive in the US without documents will no longer be eligible for bond hearings and will be detained for the duration of their removal proceedings, which can take months or years.
'They are ratcheting it up so that they can keep people in detention for as long as they want and and that's as frightening as as can be,' O'Dwyer said.
The man who spoke to The Guardian is the latest Irish person to be detained by US immigration officials in recent months.
Last month, a Donegal man who had lived in Boston for more than 15 years
was deported to Ireland
less than a month after he was detained for violating his visa waiver. The man, who is the father to two American-born children,
had joined the waiting list for green card applications three years ago
.
In April, Irish woman Cliona Ward, who has been a legal resident of California for 30 years, was detained by ICE for three weeks after returning from a trip to Ireland to visit her sick father.
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She was taken into custody after complying with a request to report to an immigration facility and presented documents showing that her decades-old drug and motor vehicle convictions had been expunged, which was not recognised under federal law.
She was released in May
.
O'Dwyer said the details of the length of time the man was detained is similar to the experiences of people he knows of who were detained.
'Once they were told that they were out of status and they had to go, what they said to the immigration authorities was 'Okay, I'm ready to go. I'll get on the plane and go'. But they kept them in detention for many, many days, basically just to give them a hard time.'
He said the case is somewhat unusual given it involved a tourist, which is something he said he has not seen as yet amid the ICE raids and detentions. But he said it was still unsurprising that it happened.
'There is a marked decrease in the number of Irish coming to the United States,' he said. Figures published earlier this year showed tourism from Ireland to the US was down 27% in March.
'Something like this, of course, will only heighten the decrease in tourism. We've also seen a huge decline in J1 visas as well, because people were just not going to put up with this type of stuff,' O'Dwyer said.
Asked what advice he would give to Irish people thinking of travelling to the US, he said: 'I'd be very careful.
'Unless they were 100% sure that their papers were in order, I wouldn't come.'
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