A B.C. mom is pleading for help after her daughter was unexpectedly detained in the United States over an incomplete visa.
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Alexis Eagles, of Abbotsford, said her 35-year-old daughter, Jasmine Mooney, entered the U.S. at the San Ysidro border crossing between Mexico and San Diego on March 3 with an incomplete application for a Trade NAFTA work visa.
She said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested her and she spent three nights in the detention centre at the busiest land border crossing in the world. Mooney has not been charged with any crime and does not have a criminal record.
Eagles said Mooney was then handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Centre in San Diego for another three nights.
Eagles said that on March 9, an online tracking system indicated Mooney had been released.
“However, 24 hours later, there was no sign of her, no communication and we were extremely worried,” Eagles said.
“We eventually learned that about 30 people, including Jasmine, were removed from their cells at 3 a.m. and transferred to the San Luis Detention Center in Arizona. They are housed together in a single concrete cell with no natural light, fluorescent lights that are never turned off, no mats, no blankets, and limited bathroom facilities.”
Eagles said that each time her daughter was transferred, she was handcuffed and in chains.
Mooney was profiled in B.C. Business magazine in 2019 for her work in the hospitality industry. According to the profile, she moved from the Yukon to Vancouver in 2008 to study at BCIT. From there, she went to acting school, before owning and operating a bar.
Last September, Mooney was a guest on a YouTube channel talking about the Holy Water tonic drink brand that she was working for in Los Angeles. In that interview, she said that she had a three-year work visa in the U.S. and had moved to Los Angeles that summer.
Eagles said that in November 2024, that visa was revoked by a U.S. customs officer as Mooney was attempting to travel from Vancouver to L.A. after a vacation. Mooney instead travelled to Mexico and Guatemala before returning to Vancouver.
The TN work visa was created under the North American Free Trade Agreement and allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work for a limited time in the U.S. in high-demand occupations.
Eagles said her daughter had entered the U.S. from Mexico when she applied successfully for her first TN visa and so tried the same thing this time around.
“We have no issue with her being denied entry, we have no issue with her initially being detained. But we have a huge issue with the inhumane treatment she is receiving and that she knows nothing, has not been charged and has not been able to speak with us directly,” Eagles said.
Mooney’s business partner, Chicago-based BJ McCaslin, told Postmedia News on Wednesday that he did not know why she was detained or what the status was of her working visa.
Mooney had told him she encountered some issues at the border and might not be able to make the health-product expo they planned to attend in Anaheim.
“It seems like a nightmare and living hell,” McCaslin said of Mooney’s incarceration. “I don’t know how someone in her position can be subject to this, and not released immediately once they found out the circumstances.”
McCaslin has been in touch with Mooney using an app that allows prisoners to communicate within the U.S.
In text messages sent to McCaslin and shared with Postmedia, Mooney said she sought to reapply for a working visa and “got taken, no warning, by ICE and put in jail now one week, no idea what is happening.”
Mooney described the detention process as “inhumane.”
She said there were about 30 women huddled on mats in a concrete cell, inedible food and fluorescent light “shining on you all day and night.”
“I will get through this, I am in a better spot than everyone in here, so can’t complain about my situation at all,” she wrote in a message to McCaslin on Tuesday.
McCaslin said maybe there was a mistake or misunderstanding, but stressed that Mooney is not doing anything illegal.
“She’s definitely not criminal,” he said. “She’s coming to a health-food product exposition. She’s an upstanding person who is very well-respected in our industry.”
He called on the U.S. government to become more transparent and for ICE to look into the circumstances of Mooney’s detainment. “I fully support the American government, but I’m very fearful for my friend.”
According to Global Affairs Canada, they are “aware of the detention of a Canadian citizen in Arizona. Consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information and to provide consular assistance.
“Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed.
“Every country or territory decides who can enter or exit through its borders. The government of Canada cannot intervene on behalf of Canadian citizens with regard to the entry and exit requirements of another country.”
