British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

If she is on a "four-month backpacking trip around North America" and tried to return to the US, she has exceeded the 90-day limit allowed by the Visa Waiver Program (which counts days both in the US and "adjacent territories") and is now an illegal overstayer. The unpaid labor stuff and getting refused entry to Canada is icing on the cake.

For the record, I'm no fan of ICE/CBP, but it looks like they're just enforcing the law here.

Enforcing the law is one thing. If they refused entry or forced her to fly back immediately, nobody would care much. Detaining is all of: cruel, expensive, unnecessary.

Forcing her to fly back immediately (and detaining until the flight if not immediate) seems reasonable, but both countries at a land crossing can't refuse entry. The article states she was refused entry to Canada, and then detained when she returned to the US; I don't know if there are international norms here, but I think in this situation if both countries would refuse entry, one of them has to accept entry and consider immigration detention; and it doesn't seem unfair for that to be the country where the person in question was before the first crossing?

Sure, they could consider detention. But then there are daily flights back to the UK. Anything beyond an overnight stay (if necessary for the wait) is unfair.

I'm not convinced it's the Americans responsibility to get her back to a suitable international airport as quickly as possible and put her in the next flight out. 10 days does seem excessive, but I don't see why she should be a priority either. I would imagine up to 5 working days fits within the realm of 'reasonable'.

A full work week in jail for something that isn’t even a crime is ridiculous.

It’s not strictly a crime, but immigration/visa fraud is a “removable offence”. It is the law that a person committing it will be removed. Sometimes immediate removal is not possible and these people must be detained and housed.

This is not all that ridiculous. What would be ridiculous is if people who have in the past, or would have by the virtue of entering into a country, committed immigration fraud were let in. Or if they were left unhoused and stateless, stuck at a border. Detaining and removing them is much more sensible.

Of course, ideally, it would be much more pleasant for the offender if they were given an option to enter anyway and leave on their own accord. But perhaps this is also an unreasonable expectation when one commits serious offences. Must we be nice to those who don’t respect our laws?

There is a lot to be said about our responsibilities to offenders, the paradox of tolerance, and similar.

This is about the same level of lawbreaking as slightly exceeding the speed limit. I have no problem with removing them. Jailing them for days first is ridiculous. Imagine if you got pulled over for speeding and they stuck you in jail for days until they could be bothered to find you a ride home.