Many drivers who are travelling on Interstate 75 through southwest Detroit have made the mistake of taking the exit that goes to the Ambassador Bridge to Canada by accident. For Americans, it can be a short-term problem because they have to go through border security checks and are then generally allowed to go back to the U.S. side of the border in Detroit.
To get to Costco, an immigrant mother in southwest Detroit and her two U.S.-citizen daughters and a brother took the wrong exit off of Interstate 75 that led to the bridge. Because of this mistake, the family was detained by immigration agents for several days, according to her lawyer. It was a terrible experience that supporters say shows that federal agents have set up a building in Detroit near the bridge to temporarily hold detained immigrants. They also think that more cases like this could happen because President Trump is tightening up on immigration.
She felt like she “was kidnapped,” according to Ruby Robinson, who is her lawyer and a senior managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Centre.
The woman, who was born in Guatemala, and her family were locked up in a holding centre for five days. They were scared and confused about what was going on and where they were, and they couldn’t get in touch with a lawyer. The lawyers say that they had to stay in a cold room and eat instant noodle soups. One of her children got a fever while they were there. The woman, whose name is Sarahi, was arrested on March 8 and her two children, ages 1 and 5, were not freed until March 12. Sarahi’s 19-year-old brother is still in jail. The government says she was a “illegal alien” who came to the U.S. without permission in 2018.
Robinson said that things have changed since Trump became president for a second term on January 20. Before that, children were not often held like Sarahi was.
Trump became president again in January. Before that, Robinson told the Free Press, “if it is a family with children, regardless of the immigration status of the children, the family most likely would have been released, or at least one adult would have been released with the children, because the United States does not really do family detention.” “They should not be doing family detention.”
In the past, families like this would have been given a court date and certain rules to follow before they could be freed. In this instance, “what happened now is that instead of that occurring right away, she had to remain in this short-term detention space for five days with her children … not knowing what was going to be happening, if she was going to be deported, if that was the last night she was going to see her children,” said Robinson. “And so, that is really concerning on the short-term detention spaces being used for longer periods of time.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the woman had broken immigration rules, so they could hold her and send her back to her home country.
“She admitted to coming into the U.S. illegally in 2018,” CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham told the Free Press in a statement that was made public by a CBP official in Michigan.
“When individuals violate immigration laws, their choices make them subject to detention and removal,” he said. “In this case, an illegal alien was encountered at the Detroit Ambassador Bridge after driving into Canada without travel documents.”
Beckham said that she didn’t want to be away from her kids while she was in jail, which is why she was held for so long. The woman who was being held was worried about being removed from her children.
“Per policy, CBP worked to find a suitable guardian for her U.S. citizen children; however, she initially chose to keep them with her, prolonging the detention period,” said Beckham. “Once the children were placed with a guardian, she was transferred to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).”
