Canadian Actress Detained By ICE Recalls Harrowing Weeks In Confinement: 'I Felt Like I Was Going To Throw Up'

Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney recalled her confinement in an ICE detention center after being detained over an incomplete visa earlier this month.

In a lengthy Op-ed published in The Guardian, Mooney detailed that her work visa had been revoked in November and she was seeking to file a new application.

The actress said he had been traveling between Canada and the U.S. without inconvenience until being suddenly questioned by a border patrol agent and detained afterward. She was told her visa had not been "properly processed" and that she couldn't work for a company in the country that used hemp, an ingredient used in Holy! Water, the beverage she sells.

Mooney recalled that she was initially detained at the San Ysidro border crossing for three nights in a freezing cement cell with five other women. She spent two days without access to legal counsel or clear information about her situation before being informed she was facing a five-year ban unless she applied for re-entry through the consulate. She said she signed the paperwork in a state of exhaustion and confusion, unaware that it would not expedite her release.

Mooney was later moved to Otay Mesa Detention Center. She was told it was unclear how long she would be detained for, but that she should prepare herself to stay for months: "I felt like I was going to throw up," she recalled.

The actress then described how other detainees were in similar circumstances, having overstayed visas or detained despite living legally in the U.S. Her situation was not unique, she highlighted, as other detainees had been picked up outside their workplaces, at traffic stops, or even during routine immigration check-ins.

Days later, she was transferred again—this time to San Luis Regional Detention Center in Arizona. The transfer process involved 24 hours of shackled transport, crowded conditions, and new intake procedures. At the facility, detainees were given minimal resources: one Styrofoam cup for water, a single spoon for all meals, and thin blankets in an ice-cold room where the fluorescent lights never turned off.

Mooney said she then managed to send an email to her employer, who contacted her friend in Canada. They worked with the media, and once the story gained attention, her release was expedited. She was told she could have left earlier if she had signed a withdrawal form and paid for her own flight, something she had repeatedly asked to do but was never informed was an option.

Now in Canada, Mooney said she is still seeking to share her story in hopes to bring attention to the thousands of others still trapped in the system. Her experience, she concluded, is far from an isolated case and part of a larger, systemic issue that profits from human suffering.

"I am writing in the hope that someone out there – someone with the power to change any of this – can help do something," she concluded.