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.

  • ansiz@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Nobody can hold a candle to ‘deporter-in-chief’ Obama. Secretly, the Democrats have been much harder and more effective on deportations and the border for decades.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        2 hours ago

        Going back through their history, looks like they’re REALLY into the democrats deport more people line, completely failing to realize the numbers for Biden and Obama are on a scale of years where the current administration is at about 100 days. Ignoring that due process was happening and It is not now, also ignoring the current tactic of ziptieing unprocessed people together and dropping them out of planes in to the pacific which is just straight murder.

        • foggenbooty@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Excuse me, can you elaborate on that last part? Dropping people outbound planes doesn’t pass the sniff test for me.

        • ansiz@lemmy.world
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          46 minutes ago

          I don’t know why you act like I am defending Trump, I am only trying to point out that Democrats were still mass deporting people. Trump is historically evil and will probably blow the Obama/Biden numbers out once ICE gets the new budget. But, this has been standard US policy since 9/11 basically.

          For example - https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trump-2-immigration-first-100-days or https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record

          While the government has not released official data in comprehensive fashion, based on Federal Register notices and selective information shared with news organizations it appears on track to deport roughly half a million people this year—fewer than the 685,000 deportations recorded in fiscal year (FY) 2024 under President Joe Biden.

          My point is that Trump could easily accomplish the same thing if mass deportations was his chief goal, because the Democrats were already doing that. Biden deported 685k in one year according to the Federal Register, if you want to discount the source and provide other numbers that is fine. I’m not trying to argue tactics, because frankly what the Dems and GOP have been doing (at least since 9/11) related to deportations and immigration has been illegal to unconstitutional in a variety of ways. Claiming asylum under international law is a defined legal process and even Obama and Biden were not following that process.

          Look even at the article this thread is in, this Irish tourist was jailed when Biden was President for overstaying his VISA for 3 days, even though he wanted to leave. That is pretty horrible behavior. Again, not saying Trump is better by any means, easily he is far worse.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            5 minutes ago

            We know. We know that Democrats also deported people. They went after actual criminals (and I guess people who had overstayed their visa), and the people had due process.

            They were not being hunted on job sites, outside of their immigration hearings (you know, “doing it the right way”), Home Depot parking lots, etc. They were not sending people to a concentration camp in a third country that the person has zero connection to.

            So when people constantly feel the need to “both sides” this issue, it comes off as ignorant (at best. More likely just being disingenuous). When it’s the same person again and again (according to another reply), then it starts to seem like a pattern…

            It shouldn’t need to be fucking said that what’s happening right now is not precedented in this country. The closest thing would be Japanese internment camps, but I believe this is far worse.

        • Headofthebored @lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Look, it wouldn’t surprise me at this point, it’s more or less just the next step, but where did you hear they were dropping people out of planes?

      • ansiz@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I didn’t say that. I was only pointing out how bad the Democrats have been, while not needing to go to the current ICE tactics. Holman was brought to us by Obama even. We’ve gone past the point where the deportations are the point; it’s the fear and repression of the entire population. And we’ve not even seen the half of it once ICE gets its new budget, it will get much worse!