Each day brings us a fresh horror story from the poor souls who’ve ended up on the wrong side of the Trump regime. Whether it’s innocent people snatched from their homes, those left unemployed and penniless after Elon Musk decided they were expendable, or bewildered Trump voters discovering they no longer have healthcare.
Today’s nightmare comes courtesy of The Guardian, which reports the case of “Thomas” (who asked to remain anonymous), a 35-year-old Irishman who, through no fault of his own, spent almost 100 days in ICE hell.
Thomas is a tech worker and father of three with a girlfriend in West Virginia. He’d visited the United States many times under the visa waiver scheme that permits tourists to remain in the country for 90 days. While on the trip, he suffered a serious injury to his calf, with a doctor ordering him not to fly due to the risk of fatal blood clots.
Thomas received a doctor’s letter confirming this, which he sent to the Department of Homeland Security along with a letter informing them he’d be overstaying his visa by three days. As he explained:
“I did everything I could with the online tools available to notify the authorities that this was happening, I thought they would understand because I had the correct paperwork. It was just a couple of days for medical reasons.”
None of that mattered to ICE. Things rapidly disintegrated after Thomas argued with his girlfriend in a hotel room, someone overheard it, and called the cops. He was soon released, but ICE realized he was in breach of his visa and scooped him up, depositing him in a “processing center” in Folkston, Georgia.
Thomas was now in hell for the next 100 days as his lawyers and family frantically tried to free him. Despite agreeing to be deported back home to Ireland, Thomas remained in custody, with officials giving no indication how long he’d remain behind bars. And, when he thought he might be released, he was instead transferred to a federal correctional facility run by the Bureau of Prisons, where things only got worse.
“Less than human”
He was placed in a crowded cell infested with roaches and mice with filthy mattresses to sleep on, given bloodstained and ripped jumpsuits to wear, one roll of toilet paper to use for a week, and “disgusting slop” to eat containing a bony mystery meat with “other inedible items mixed in”. Thomas says detainees were “treated less than human”.
After around three months of this, Thomas was suddenly taken to an airport and flown back to Ireland, now suffering psychological problems and malnutrition. Lawyers are baffled and disturbed by cases like his, with Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project saying:
“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.”
Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel with the National Immigration Law Center, says the Trump administration’s default position is to keep people indefinitely detained rather than deport them, with the only question, “Do we have a bed?”
Tourism to the United States is already in rapid decline under Trump, with international visitors hearing horror stories like this (and invasive scrutiny of electronic devices on entry) that encourage people to stay away. Meanwhile, Thomas has been left traumatized and damaged, saying: “I’ll never forget it, and it’ll be a long time before I’ll be able to even start to unpack everything I went through. It still doesn’t feel real.”
