Canadian woman put in chains, detained by ICE after entering San Diego border
A Canadian entrepreneur detained by ICE is speaking out after she got arrested while trying to enter the San Diego border to obtain a visa last Monday.
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A Canadian entrepreneur detained by ICE is speaking out after she got arrested while trying to enter the San Diego border to obtain a visa last Monday.
Mooney told Team 10 she is appalled by the conditions inside the private for-profit detention facility in San Luis. "I have never in my life seen anything so inhumane," she said in an interview with Investigative Reporter Austin Grabish.
Mooney, who previously was working in Los Angeles for a health tonic beverage company on a TN visa, which was revoked, said she went to the border with a new job offer and visa paperwork.
She got her first visa at the San Ysidro border crossing on the advice of a Los Angeles attorney, who met her at the border, she said.
First visa revoked
Mooney, who is the co-founder of the Holy! Water brand, said a U.S. border officer at the Vancouver airport in Canada revoked her first visa when she was visiting home."They told me I was unprofessional because I didn't have a proper letterhead on my paperwork," Mooney said.
Mooney said a border officer told her because she had a prior visa revoked, she needed to go to a U.S. consulate to apply for legal status to work in the country again.
She said the officer refused to allow her to go back to Mexico and ordered her to be detained.
One issue border officers may have had with Mooney's previous U.S. employment is that one drink Holy! Water advertised on its website contains Delta-9 "full spectrum hemp."
The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp, including Delta 9-THC, if the product contained no more than 0.3% THC. Anything more is still considered a controlled substance under federal law.
The agency noted it treats all travelers with integrity, respect and professionalism.
Mooney disagreed and said she was kept in a cold room at the border by CBP before being arrested by ICE, who placed her at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.
Mooney said the food inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center was awful and claimed in the middle of the night she, along with a group of 30 other women, was rounded up to get transferred to a facility in Arizona.
"We were up for 24 hours wrapped in chains," she said.
Core Civic, the private company that owns the Otay Mesa facility, said it provides three "nutritious" meals a day to inmates.
