Canadian Actor Detained By ICE Speaks Out On ‘Inhumane’ Conditions

Canadian actor and entrepreneur Jasmine Mooney is speaking out about her detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after attempting to enter California from Mexico earlier this month.

Mooney, a Vancouver native known for her role in 2009’s “American Pie Presents: The Book of Love,” now runs the wellness brand Holy! Water. She was traveling from Vancouver to where she works in Los Angeles when a U.S. border officer at the Vancouver airport informed her that her three-year work visa had been revoked.

Seeking to renew her travel authorization, Mooney then attempted to enter the U.S. through the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, where she originally obtained her visa, but was detained on March 3.

She was held for three nights at San Diego’s Otay Mesa Detention Center, where she described alarming conditions.

“I was put in a cell and had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, just an aluminum foil wrap over my body like a dead body for two and a half days,” Mooney told San Diego’s ABC affiliate, KGTV.

She was later transferred to Arizona’s San Luis Regional Detention Center with 30 other women, all shackled for the duration of their journey.

“We were up for 24 hours wrapped in chains,” she told KGTV from detention, adding, “I’ve never in my life seen anything so inhumane.”

HuffPost has reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.

Mooney’s case comes amid the Trump administration’s escalating mass deportation efforts and growing tensions between the U.S. and Canada.

British Columbia Premier David Eby told CityNews Vancouver he has urged Canada’s federal government to intervene but fears Mooney’s detention will further strain relations with the U.S.

“The harm this does to the U.S. economy — through impacted tourism, business relationships, and skilled workers unable to obtain visas — is reckless,” Eby said. “This woman should be brought back to Canada as quickly as possible.”