American Pie actress Jasmine Mooney is back in Canada after she was arrested at the US-Mexico border and was kept in ICE custody for 12 days. Recounting her harrowing experience of how she was transported three times over 12 days, Mooney said she has no idea why she was detained at the border and she can’t blame President Donald Trump either.
“I don’t want to point fingers at anything. I really don’t know. But obviously people can speculate what they want,” the Canadian actress said on being asked whether she felt that Trump’s border policies led to her detention.
Why was Jasmine Mooney detained? Why did she go to the US-Mexico border?
Vancouver-based Jasmine Mooney went to the US-Mexico border to renew her visa and she was detained by the ICE, she said. The 35-year-old actress, and entrepreneur works in Los Angeles. When she came home, she learned that her visa had been revoked and she could not board a flight. She decided to get the visa renewed at the border and hence traveled to the US-Mexico border where the ICE agents detained her and said she did not have documentations to be in the US. The Canadian government was alerted about Mooney’s detention and it said it was working to get more information about what happened.
Mooney was initially held at the San Ysidro border crossing in Southern California for three nights. She was then transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego and held for another three nights. Mooney said she felt like she was kidnapped as she was kept in chains.
An ICE spokesperson said Mooney was treated in accordance with the Trump administration order that all aliens in violation of US immigration law is subject to arrest.
“I’m still, to be honest, really processing everything,” Mooney told CTV News as she arrived at the airport. “I haven’t slept in a while and haven’t eaten proper food in a while, so I’m just really going through the motions,” she said, noting she would “never in a million years” have gone to the border had she thought there was “even a possibility” she could be detained.
