https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/ice-german-t...
She was trying to commit immigration fraud by coming to work to the US with ESTA. There was evidence. So she could not be let in. She also could not be legally turned around. And deportation takes time.
Of course, it is not desirable to detain such people. And it is especially unfortunate that she was in a for-profit detention facility and suffered mistreatment there. But what is the other option? Let in people with a known history of immigration fraud?
When someone is warned many, many times during the ESTA application process that they may not work in the US during their stay, and they still decide to do so illegally, then sometimes there are consequences to these actions. Even if this person is German.
Of course, it is sad and unfortunate that these things happen. And perhaps laws could change so that small scale offenders are inconvenienced less, but there is a big debate about that with regard to sanctuary cities and decriminalizing petty crime, and it does seem like it’s not the way to go either. Alternatively, the penalty is a deterrent for an offence. Maybe one shouldn’t expect pleasant treatment if they willingly break laws.
Even if we accept everything you say as true (which it very well may be, so sure), you’ve papered over the crux of the isssue with “deportation may take time”.
No. Deportation takes no time whatsoever. ICE has been deporting people within hours of detaining them even in situations where they don’t want to go back to their home countries or their home country doesn’t want to accept them.
But even beyond that, the only reason it’s “taking time” is because the Trump administration fired a whole bunch of immigration judges slowing the entire process down.
End of the day you can make all the excuses you want. My friends who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the U.S. in the past are not gonna come anymore.
Literally no one benefits from this mess but all some people can do is defend the stupidest of policies and actions.
It even takes months to years in Germany, and detention is reviewed every 180 days for Duldung status.
The truth is this German citizen was deported very quickly compared to many others and under otherwise relatively normal circumstances.
Remember that all news media has a bias (humans simply are biased, a map is not the territory, and all that), and it was probably in someone’s interest to exaggerate the story as they did (maybe simply for clicks, maybe for politics).
Outside of the use of solitary confinement, I don’t see how her deportation process could have been practically improved. When you speak of people being deported immediately, you are probably talking about turning around at the border (refusing entry when someone can go back and doesn’t become trapped). This is preferred by everyone but can’t always be done. Maybe it is aspirational to do it in more cases (immigrant buses to the airport or similar), but I don’t know any country that does it like that.