I shudder to think what it would be like in the current climate.
I had overstayed my student visa but that was the extent of my crime. For that I had the pleasure of being shackled and bussed from the inland checkpoint (the one on 5 freeway) to the detention center.
The worst part is the uncertainty, once you are at a detention center - you have no idea what/when is something going to happen.
There is no information flow besides my one phone call.
You have to be happy with your daily burritos and then hope you make some friends and no enemies. Weird thing happens to your brain in these type of uncertain places, you sort of dissociate from what is happening to you. Some sort of defense mechanism I suppose.
I mean how do you respond when the boyfriend of the "main" guy at the facility asks "Don't I know you from somewhere?".
In the end I was incredibly lucky - I actually knew a lawyer to call - and that must have helped me. Most of the people inside had been in detention for weeks with only rough knowledge that at some point they would be deported or possibly set free.
So I had my hearing in front of judge some months later and I agreed for "voluntary departure" and 10 year ban.
Since then I am on some sort of blacklist for life.
Each time I've come back to US, I've have had to spend 2-3 hours at CPB interview room, which if you want to hear human misery from around the world is the place to be. There is some sort of queue but it is rather haphazard.
Again you have this incredible uncertainty when you will get out of this room.
Again, I am extremely lucky, I've had very pleasant CPB officers so far and they are either indifferent or sympathetic to my case.
Last time I was simply given passport without explanation after 2 hour wait with no interview at all!
Then again I've only traveled to US when current administration is not aggressively posturing.