For roughly 100 days, Thomas says he faced harsh detention conditions, despite agreeing to deportation
Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia to visit his girlfriend last fall. It was one of many trips he had taken to the US, and he was authorized to travel under a visa waiver program that allows tourists to stay in the country for 90 days.
He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody.
From there, what should have been a minor incident became a nightmarish ordeal: he was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was being held – or when he’d get out.
Irish are non-white again. We’re going back to the 1800s, baby.
Look up the unjust hangings of Dominic Daley and James Halligan in 1806. There was no evidence whatsoever that they committed the murder they were accused of other than maybe being in the area at the time and even that was based on shaky grounds. The defense even had their closing statement saying that the prosecution had no evidence other than ‘aww come on! They’re Irish! You know how they’re like! Besides, someone has to hang for that murder!’
Stop traveling to that shithole.
Like 80 years ago. Nobody was safe from Nazi German GeStaPo. Why do people expect safety from or accountability of the Nazi American GeStaPo?
“Armoured cars, tanks and guns! Came to take away our sons! But we stand behind the men, the men behind the wire!”
Latinos and Irish united in their fight against immigration officials!
tbf I‘m glad it doesn’t only happen to people from poor countries
Guess the “Luck of the Irish” ran out
fun-ny…?
“he’s been here too long, keep him here longer!”
The most conservative thing I’ve read all day
Detaining people isn’t free either, we also paid to keep them here longer. The whole thing is immensely stupid.
Lives gets destroyed, everyone pay for it, money is diverted from actually useful stuff, but all this is a low price to pay for a handful of mafia bosses to get even richer.
Private prisons have an incentive to keep people like him in the system as long as possible.
Only if you believe their words, which you absolutely should not. A for profit prison management company got paid for 100 days detention when they would have gotten 0 if they let this guy leave.
Everything working out as planned.
You forget that the camps are private, so they need to keep him there to get paid. 100 days seems like about enough.
At least this (probably) white guy, who speaks the same language, got to suffer on taxpayers’ dollars. What a relief. /s
It is justification of budget. They are apprehended criminals as long as they are on the books.
she has had European clients shocked to learn they can face serious consequences for briefly overstaying a visa.
Are people stupid? Visa says “GTFO before this date”. If you then don’t then there are consequences. It’s not that hard to understand, no?
I agree that it’s ridiculous how people treated in those jails, and that he should not have been held for 3 months, but come on…
He had a medical condition, in writing from the doctor that he couldn’t fly for 8 to 12 weeks in case of blood clogs. He notified the authorities that he might be overstaying a little without any response.
And still he got detained, the US is a banana republic led by an ape.
If the government is so incompetent that it detains someone for months because they overstayed their visa for 3 days , do you trust them to handle anything else correctly?
It should be pretty easy to detain someone, say, hey you didn’t leave on time and get them on a flight out. This doesn’t take months, especially if there’s some actual circumstances like this guy apparently had.
This type of behavior is going to stop international companies from doing any in person business with US companies. It’s disgusting.
Key word is “serious.” Overstaying a visa visit is a civil offense, not even a criminal misdemeanor where the punishment may just be a small fine.
Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia
See? That’s the problem here.
Really, people, do NOT go to the US.
Do NOT follow the country roads.
I can’t go home…
I’d be interested to see what Republican policies have done to the US tourism industry. I know it’s taking a hit, but how much I’m not sure. I know I wouldn’t come here by choice.
im betting florida is crushed, given how there hasnt been news for MONTHS since trump began his tariffs.
Completely crushed the industry…95 billion dollars loss projected this year
its probably more than that, since alot of them use immigrants for farm work, and hospitality in the tourism industry, so the fallout is probably greater.
that’ll teach them nasty foreigners
And in completely unrelated news, why can’t I get cheap fresh produce any more? Where did my favorite taco truck go???
where’s my MacArthur Park ice cream vendor?
I don’t know, but someone left the cake out in the rain.
And that’s with people going on trips they planned a year ago. 2026 will see tourist towns turn into ghost towns.
Gonna be even worse now too with the National Park Service cuts: there are so many foreign tourists at the parks. As there should be too! Our National Parks are amazing!
Until they have open pit mines and clear cut logging.
Our National Parks are amazing!
For now.
when its filled with luxury apartments or complexes.
People are only still going to the states because they had trips planned before the shit hit the fan. Once those trips are over, tourism to the states will be near zilch
I SAW bunch of tourists in bay area specifically riding the cable cars, pier 39, definitely still way less, it will be all gone by christmas. its still way less than in early in the year.
I’m in a red state tourist town and our overall visitation is down over 30%. That said, international visitors only account for about 3% of tourism in this state, so there’s much more involved with that loss than just the international travel.
Inflation caused by corporate greed kills people’s ability to take vacations for some reason.
I know I’m not trying to visit any red states anytime soon. I have some inlaws in red states and they better stay alive and healthy for the next 3.5 years or I will be FaceTimeing into any familial obligations
Every country should have travel warnings against visiting the Untied States
Canada doesn’t even have any new warnings. They have the regular “gun ownership” and stuff they’ve had for years, but not a single word about the new administration. US travel is still listed as “green”. Travel to the UK is “yellow” for fuck’s sake.
Yes, according to the Canadian government, it is less safe to travel to the UK than it is to the US. And that’s after admitting that about 55 Canadian citizens are in US custody at any given time.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadians-ice-detention-1.7577584
Our government is failing in their responsiblity on this. Makes my blood boil that they still are walking on eggshells with the us.
Agreed. They’re neglecting their duty to warn us of the dangers of traveling to the US.
I fear unless something is done that Carney will go down in history as a modern day Chamberlain.
isnt carney currently cozying up more and more to the right.
You gotta be pretty in love to travel to a backwater nation like the US. Traveling to WV though, that’s beyond insanity.
Love makes you do crazy things, I suppose.
Well, as they say: “a single cunt hair’ll pull a battleship across the desert.” Pardon my vulgarity
You can say “battleship” here. It’s fine.
Blame it to the country roads, I heard they take you there.
Have you ever been to WV? It is incredibly beautiful.
Yes. Visually it’s ok. Just don’t talk to the inhabitants or try to get educated in one of their schools and if you need to go to a hospital I recommend having one of those helicopter insurance plans that people get when they visit the Congo.
Mostly fair :(. Too bad, since WV used to be full of working class heroes.
American Mafia, its business, not protection.
Wonder how much it cost to keep him instead of just let him back to Ireland. Bunch of cunts
Sure it cost the taxpayers something, but that went directly into the pockets of the for-profit prison company. So you see, this is actually great for the economy!
remember they hid the identity of all the construction companies that help build the florida concentration camp.
hundreds of thousands per person.
They’re paid in how many teeth they can pull out with rusty pliers. Compensation isn’t always in hard cash, you know.
With these assholes it’s not about money, it’s about cruelty.
I still think it’s about money, especially considering the size of the prison industrial complex. It just so happens that capitalism encourages cruelty when it’s profitable.
Oh sure, but they’ll continually claim until they’re blue in the face that everything they do is about money. So they should be continually exposed as the financially irresponsible idiots that they are.
For the people where egregious human rights violations and terrorism aren’t deal breakers, wasting money is. Frankly I don’t respect their opinion, however, they also vote, therefore their opinion does matter.
It’s both. They are unequivocally profiting from the cruelty.
