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.

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      You forget that the camps are private, so they need to keep him there to get paid. 100 days seems like about enough.

    • dropped_packet@lemmy.zip
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      19 hours ago

      Detaining people isn’t free either, we also paid to keep them here longer. The whole thing is immensely stupid.

      • halowpeano@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        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.

      • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        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.