I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks

Why is this flagged?

First of all, it's about an entrepreneur traveling to the US for a startup, which is directly relevant to a significant proportion of YCombinator founders themselves.

Beyond its direct relevance to the core founding audience of HN, it is not clickbait or wantonly inflammatory, and is clearly of interest to many based on the comment activity and votes.

It's about someone with an denied visa trying to work around due immigration process (going to a consulate) by attempting instead to get to a far away border crossing and attempting a crossing there because, in her own recollection of the events, she knew/assumed the office was less strict.

And while it's a non story it's framed as a scandal because it resonate with the current political climate and the character is sympathetic to the narrative (productive and upstanding character compared to the ones dominating the previous news cycle on the topic)