British tourist detained in the US shares her story with The Guardian

[Shoezembagsforever]

This is terrifying…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/05/i-was-a-british-tourist-trying-to-leave-america-then-i-was-detained-shackled-and-sent-to-an-immigration-detention-centre?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It does sound a horrible experience for Becky but it was the Canadian authorities that said that she was violating the tourist visa, would not let her enter Canada and notified the American authorities that she was violating the tourist visa in the US.
It is unclear if it would have been any different if Trump was not in office.
In the UK about 8 years ago there were a lot of Israeli's working with me on shopping centre promotions and they were on tourist visa's, they were all arrested and kicked out of the UK so this is not uncommon and sounds as though it was a bit of a grey area as she was not working for money but was workind 'in kind' for housing and board.

This is correct.

It was Canadian border control staff that stopped her and reported her to US staff for being on the wrong visa. This would happen in the UK too. Our border agency carry's out raids, detains and deports people too.

This sort of thing happens all of the time all over the world. Most people know that America has strict visa rules. You can’t just rely on being a white middle class British person and say ‘but I was just’ when it comes to visas.

I think there are loads of issues with Trump’s government’s approach to immigration (and indeed to most other things!) but it does sound like she was working on a tourist visa, which was unlikely to go down well.

She was literally living for free in the USA in exchange for doing home chores, childcare etc. That clearly requires a different visa to a tourist one so the Canadian authorities did nothing wrong. The article mentions Workaway twice, although glosses over the fact whether she was doing that while this incident happened (strongly suspect yes). If the platform is called Workaway, it's obvious you need a working visa.

She was also the nanny for that Guardian writer's children for two years so it's hardly unbiased journalism. The entire story is tragic but still caused by a bureaucratic blunder. It smacks of if you're white, female, middle class and draw comics then you should be inexplicable exempt from basic laws. (1984 - All animals are equal but some are more equal than others). If a male POC ended up in the exact same position by mistakenly not organising a working visa, the Guardian wouldn't be touching his story with a 10 foot pole.

Even the headline isn't technically correct because it calls her a British TOURIST. She was in the USA working under a tourist visa. It's the classic scenario that happens often with illegal immigrants who outstay their tourist visa and end up working unregistered. So the fact she ended up at a detention centre with POC immigrants who did the same thing on paper is no surprise at all. Why should the fact she's white make it more tragic and Guardian-headline-worthy that she had to spend time in a cell?

This is another case of a Brit abroad who thinks the rules don’t apply to them.

It's not terrifying at all. It is stupidity in action. She was on the wrong visa. She got caught.

J1 cultural exchange visa costs $380 and the ESTA visa waiver costs $21. I wonder why she didn't get the J1 which Workaway recommend?

I agree.

My husband, who is black, was wrestled to the ground and arrested at the airport in Maylasia when we were on our way to our honeymoon because when he handed over his passport a pound coin was in between the pages and he was arrested for attempting to bribe the officer at passport control.

I didn’t get my former employer who writes for the guardian to write about it though, saying that the laws of someone else’s country shouldn’t apply to us.

I'm going to agree with PP. A horrible experience for Becky no doubt but it's common knowledge that the US immigration authorities don't screw around if you're on the wrong visa so you absolutely need to be on the right one.