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.
Yes, it was before, but, there is a little more to it. It was a mental health episode and the police were called. One would think they would just have an air marshall fly back home with him, But the US is really not good at mental health problems.
Regardless, imprisoning him for months is completely indefensible.
Should have been a psychiatric eval and a trip home. If it would have happened the month or two earlier probably would have went down like that. He had the bad luck to have a break and still be locked up when everything was getting DOGEd