Weekslong lockups of European tourists at US borders spark fears of traveling to America [View all]

Source: Associated Press

Weekslong lockups of European tourists at US borders spark fears of traveling to America

By JULIE WATSON
Updated 2:02 PM EDT, March 21, 2025

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On the Canadian border, a backpacker from Wales spent nearly three weeks at a detention center before flying home this week. And a Canadian woman on a work visa detained at the Tijuana border spent 12 days in detention before returning home last weekend.

Sielaff, 25, and the others say it was never made clear why they were taken into custody even after they offered to go home voluntarily.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s US-Mexico border program, a nonprofit that aids migrants, said in the 22 years he has worked on the border he’s never seen travelers from Western Europe and Canada, longtime U.S. allies, locked up like this.

“It’s definitely unusual with these cases so close together, and the rationale for detaining these people doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It doesn’t justify the abhorrent treatment and conditions” they endured.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/border-tourists-german-canadian-detention-immigration-408cd27338e8065268fabc835f8b0c34