35-year-old Jasmine Mooney, who was once profiled in B.C. Business magazine for her work in the hospitality industry, has been detained since March 3
A B.C. mom is pleading for help after her daughter was unexpectedly detained in the United States.
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According to a Facebook post, Alexis Eagles said her 35-year-old daughter, Jasmine Mooney, entered the U.S. at the San Ysidro border crossing in Tijuana on March 3 with an invalid visa.
She was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and held at that location for three nights.
Eagles said her daughter was then transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Centre in San Diego for another three nights.
She said that on March 9 an online tracking system indicated Mooney had been released.
“However, 24 hours later, there was no sign of her, no communication, and we were extremely worried,” Eagles wrote.
“We eventually learned that about 30 people, including Jasmine, were forcibly removed from their cells at 3 a.m. and transferred to the San Luis Detention Center in Arizona. They are housed together in a single concrete cell with no natural light, fluorescent lights that are never turned off, no mats, no blankets, and limited bathroom facilities.”
Mooney was profiled in B.C. Business magazine in 2019 for her work in the hospitality industry. According to the profile she moved from the Yukon to Vancouver in 2008 to study at BCIT, from where she went to acting school.
Last September, Mooney was profiled on a YouTube channel talking about the Holy Water brand. In that interview she said that she had a three-year work visa in the U.S. and had moved to Los Angeles that summer.
Mooney’s business partner, Chicago-based BJ McCaslin, told Postmedia News on Wednesday that he did not know why she was detained or what the status was of her working visa.
Mooney had told him she encountered some issues at the border and might not be able to make health-product expo they planned to attend in Anaheim.
“It seems like a nightmare and living hell,” McCaslin said of Mooney’s incarceration. “I don’t know how someone in her position can be subject to this, and not released immediately once they found out the circumstances.”
McCaslin has been in touch with Mooney using an app that allows prisoners to communicate.
In text messages sent to McCaslin and shared with Postmedia, Mooney said she sought to reapply for a working visa and “got taken, no warning, by ICE and put in jail now one week, no idea what is happening.”
Mooney described the detention process as “inhumane.”
She said there were about 30 women huddled on mats in a concrete cell, inedible food, and fluorescent light “shining on you all day and night.”
“I will get through this, I am in a better spot than everyone in here, so can’t complain about my situation at all,” she wrote in a message to McCaslin on Tuesday.
McCaslin said maybe there was a mistake or misunderstanding, but stressed that Mooney is not doing anything illegal.
“She’s definitely not criminal,” he said. “She’s coming to a health food product exposition. She’s an upstanding person who is very well-respected in our industry.”
He called on the U.S. government to become more transparent and for ICE to look into the circumstances of Mooney’s detainment. “I fully support the American government, but I’m very fearful for my friend.”
According to Global Affairs Canada, they are “aware of the detention of a Canadian citizen in Arizona. Consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information and to provide consular assistance.
“Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed.
“Every country or territory decides who can enter or exit through its borders. The government of Canada cannot intervene on behalf of Canadian citizens with regard to the entry and exit requirements of another country.”
More to come …