Jasmine Mooney is a Canadian entrepreneur and actor, who among other things participated in the American-Pie films.
On March 3, she was arrested by American border police and held the prisoner for almost two weeks under “inhuman conditions” due to an incomplete visa, reports The Guardian.
Mooney tells the magazine that she traveled back and forth between Canada and California in the United States several times – where she worked – without any problems. But during a trip, when she was on her way back to the United States, she was interrogated by a border patrol and detained.
“One moment I was at a migration center and talked about my work visa. The next moment I was told to put my hands against the wall before I was sent to a migration center without the opportunity to talk to a lawyer,” she writes in a chronicle for The Guardian.
Mooney: looked like a room full of corpse
Mooney must have been arrested at the border crossing between Mexico and San Diego in California, the bay is the busiest border crossing in the world.
She had not been charged with any crime, and also had no previous crime history, the newspaper states.
Mooney spent three nights at the Migration Center, and was then moved to another center in the state of Arizona, 65 miles away.
When the intake process was completed, the guard threw a blanket at her and said, “Find a bed”.
There were no pillows and the room was ice cold. Mooney says that many of the 30 women she shared Cell with had wrapped themselves into their blankets, and that it looked like a room full of corpses.
“I told myself: Don’t let this crack you”.
She says that they got frigolite cup to drink water from and a plastic spoon that she had to reuse every meal – which made her sick.
The turn: “We talked to the media”
Mooney never got any explanation as to why she was sitting there. She was also not allowed to make any calls, was locked in a room without daylight and she had no idea when she was to be released.
The turn for Mooney came when she was shown a tablet that was stuck on the wall and which she could email from. The only email address she remembered was her CEO’s.
He replied.
“Through him I was able to get in touch with my best friend Britt. She told them that they worked around the clock to try to get me out. But no one had any answers, the system made it almost impossible. I told her about the conditions on the site and that’s when we decided to turn to the media.”
Mooney came into contact with a reporter, and shortly thereafter, her story had spread.
“Almost immediately after, I learned that I would be released”.
Jasmine Mooney landed at Vancouver’s international airport shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, local time.
“I still process everything, if I am to be honest,” Mooney told reporters waiting for her at the airport.