The Western vacationers locked up by US border guards: Travellers describe spending weeks in ‘insane, psychological, social experiment’ detention centres underneath Trump immigration crackdown

Western holidaymakers locked up by US border guards have described spending weeks in an ‘insane psychological, social experiment’ while being detained in detention centres.

Tourists – some of whom claim to have held valid visas – say they were shackled and jailed for weeks, before being taken to the airport in ‘leg chains, waist chains and handcuffs’ for deportation and allowed to fly home at their own expense.

Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney was denied entry into the country while trying to make her way from Mexico to San Diego, California after her work visa was revoked back in November while travelling from Vancouver to Los Angeles.

She was hurled into jail on March 3 and spent 12 days in detention, claiming it felt like she had been ‘kidnapped’ and trapped in an experiment. She told ABC10 ‘what is happening is so unjust and I know that there’s a better way to do this’.

Lucas Sielaff, 25, was driving into the US from Mexico with his American fianceé when he claims that Border Patrol agents accused of him violating the rules of his 90-day US tourist permit. 

Sielaff, who alleges he held a valid visa and had visited the US several times before, was handcuffed, shackled and sent to a crowded immigration detention centre where he spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany.

‘I still have nightmares and I’m not yet back to normal,’ Sielaff told the Financial Times of the horrific experience. ‘I’m trying to process everything properly. It’ll take a while.’

The incidents are fuelling anxiety amongst travellers the Trump Administration’s illegal migrant crackdown sees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents take ‘more aggressive enforcement’ approach at the border. 

The Administration had planned to issue a so-called travel ban that barred entry to foreign nationals from 43 countries that allegedly do not meet America’s vetting standards, but the proposal has been indefinitely delayed.

Since President Donald Trump took office, there have been several incidents of tourists being stopped at US border crossings and held for weeks at immigration detention facilities.

Sielaff and his fiancee Lennon Tyler say they often took road trips to Mexico when he vacationed in the US since it was only a day’s drive from her home in Las Vegas. 

But things went terribly wrong when the couple drove back from their four-day trip to Tijuana in February.

Sielaff arrived in the US on January 27. The couple travelled to Mexico on February 14 and tried to return on February 18, just 22 days into his 90-day tourist permit.

When they pulled up to the crossing, the US border agent asked Sielaff aggressively, ‘Where are you going? Where do you live?’ Tyler said.

Noting that English is not Sielaff’s first language, Tyler said he answered: ‘We’re going to Las Vegas.’

‘Oh, we caught you. You live in Las Vegas. You can’t do that,’ the agent replied, according to Tyler. Sielaff was taken away for more questioning.

Tyler said she asked to go with him or if he could get a translator and was told to be quiet, then taken out of her car and handcuffed and chained to a bench. Her dog, who had undergone surgery in Mexico and was recovering, was left in the car.

After four hours, Tyler was allowed to leave but said she was given no information about her fiancé’s whereabouts.

Sielaff said that during questioning he told authorities he never lived in the US and had no criminal history. He said he was given a full-body search and ordered to hand over his cellphone and belongings. 

He was put in a holding cell where he slept on a bench for two days before being transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego. There, he said, he shared a cell with eight others. 

‘You are angry, you are sad, you don’t know when you can get out,’ Sielaff said. ‘You just don´t get any answers from anybody.’

He was finally told to get a direct flight to Germany and submit a confirmation number. In a frantic call from Sielaff, Tyler bought it for $2,744. He flew back March 5.

Becky Burke, a Welsh backpacker travelling across North America, was stopped at the US-Canada border on February 26 and held for nearly three weeks at a detention facility in Washington state, her father Paul Burke posted on Facebook. 

Her father said she was accused of travelling on the wrong visa. After being held in custody for 19 days she was allegedly transported to the airport ‘in leg chains, waist chains and handcuffs’.

The tourists said it was never made clear why they were taken into custody even after they offered to go home voluntarily. 

Jessica Brösche, 26, spent over six weeks locked up, including over a week in solitary confinement, after she was stopped at the Tijuana crossing on January 25.

The German tattoo artist was arrested by US Customs and Border Protection while trying to walk through a checkpoint in San Diego.

Brösche was travelling with her American friend Nikita Lofving as a tourist under the ESTA visa waiver program. The two had met in Tijuana and were carrying tattooing equipment. 

Immigration officials reportedly accused Brösche of working in the US the last time she entered the country with the ESTA program, an electronic system that determines whether someone is eligible to enter the US without a visa. 

ESTAs are only intended for tourists and people are not allowed to work in the US while visiting on one.  

Lofving told the outlet she asked officials if Brösche could be sent back to Mexico, but they said she would be deported to Germany in three to five days because she could not offer proof of residence in the Latin American country.

But Brösche says she spent days in a cell at the San Diego border before she was taken into ICE custody and brought to the the Otay Mesa Detention Center, where she was held for over a month. The German national flew home March 11.

‘She’s happy to be home,’ said Ashley Paschen, who learned about Brösche’s situation on TikTok and visited her several times while she was in detention. ‘She seems very relieved if anything but she´s not coming back here anytime soon.’

Both German tourists were allowed into the US under a program offered to a select group of countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, whose citizens are allowed to travel to the US for business or leisure for up to 90 days without getting a visa in advance. 

Applicants register online with the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation.

But even if they are authorised to travel under that system, US authorities have wide discretion to still deny entry. 

Following the detentions, Britain and Germany updated their travel advisories to alert people about the strict US border enforcement. 

The United Kingdom warned ‘you may be liable to arrest or detention if you break the rules.’

The detentions come amid legal fights over the Trump administration’s arrests and deportations of other foreigners with valid visas and green card holders, including a Palestinian activist who helped organise campus protests of the war in Gaza.

ICE said in an email to the AP that Sielaff and Brösche, who was held for 45 days, ‘were deemed inadmissible’ by Customs and Border Protection. 

That agency said it cannot discuss specifics but ‘if statutes or visa terms are violated, travellers may be subject to detention and removal.’ The agencies did not comment on the other cases.

Tyler says she plans to sue the US government.

Sielaff said he and Tyler are now rethinking plans to hold their wedding in Las Vegas. He suffers nightmares and is considering therapy to cope with the trauma.

‘Nobody is safe there anymore to come to America as a tourist,’ he said.

Before Mooney’s release, British Columbia Premier David Eby expressed concern, saying: ‘It certainly reinforces anxiety that … many Canadians have about our relationship with the US right now, and the unpredictability of this administration and its actions.’