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.

  • swemg@sh.itjust.works
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    14 hours ago

    Wonder how much it cost to keep him instead of just let him back to Ireland. Bunch of cunts

    • synae[he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 hours ago

      Sure it cost the taxpayers something, but that went directly into the pockets of the for-profit prison company. So you see, this is actually great for the economy!

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours ago

        Oh sure, but they’ll continually claim until they’re blue in the face that everything they do is about money. So they should be continually exposed as the financially irresponsible idiots that they are.

        For the people where egregious human rights violations and terrorism aren’t deal breakers, wasting money is. Frankly I don’t respect their opinion, however, they also vote, therefore their opinion does matter.

      • kozy138@slrpnk.net
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        12 hours ago

        I still think it’s about money, especially considering the size of the prison industrial complex. It just so happens that capitalism encourages cruelty when it’s profitable.

    • ijedi1234@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      They’re paid in how many teeth they can pull out with rusty pliers. Compensation isn’t always in hard cash, you know.