WaPo has reported that a British family on vacation in Canada mistakenly crossed over into the U.S. where ICE arrested and detained this family for days in a PA facility decried as a "baby jail":
The Connors family didn't plan to be on the unmarked road.
Originally from the United Kingdom, the two couples and their three young children were driving near the U.S.-Canada border on Oct. 3 during a visit to Vancouver when an animal ventured into the road, forcing them to make an unexpected detour. But before the family could get very far, flashing lights from a police car appeared in their rearview mirror. The officer that pulled them over was American — they had accidentally crossed the border.
The vacationing family says this was the moment their trip turned into "the scariest experience of our lives," according to a complaint filed Friday to the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. Instead of being allowed to return to Canada or the U.K., Eileen Connors alleges that her entire family, including her 3-month-old son, ended up detained at the Berks Family Residential Center in Leesport, Pa., where they have spent more than a week living in "frigid" and "filthy" conditions. As of late Monday, Bridget Cambria, the Connorses' lawyer, told The Washington Post that the British family was still at the center waiting to be deported.
"We will never forget, we will be traumatized for the rest of our lives by what the United States government has done to us," Connors wrote in a sworn statement, later adding, "We have been treated like criminals here, stripped of our rights, and lied to. … It is undoubtedly the worst experience we have ever lived through."
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed in a statement to The Post on Tuesday that the family is being held at the Leesport facility but disputed their claims of mistreatment. The center, the statement said, "provides a safe and humane environment for families as they go through the immigration process."
"Reports of abuse or inhumane conditions at BFRC are unequivocally false," officials said.
Connors, however, alleges that the mistreatment began shortly after her family was stopped by the American officer.
Even before the tourists could explain why they were on the road, Connors, 24, wrote that her 30-year-old husband David and his cousin, who was driving at the time, were arrested.
"You crossed an international border," said the officer, who allegedly did not read the men their rights and ignored the family's pleas that they had unknowingly crossed into the United States and never intended to enter the country during their trip, despite having the proper visas. The complaint did not specify exactly where the incident took place.
The family asked if they could "simply turn around" and were denied, Connors wrote.
Connors and her baby were separated from her husband and placed in "a very cold cell" at an undisclosed Border Patrol station in Washington state, the statement said. Cambria, a lawyer with Aldea - The People's Justice Center in Pennsylvania, told The Post that the frigid detention cells have a nickname: "Hieleras," or "iceboxes."
When the Connorses got off their flight, they were in Pennsylvania. Their destination was the Berks Family Residential Center, a facility advocates have decried as "baby jail," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
