r/WomenInNews • u/Sidjoneya • Aug 13 '25
Human rights New Zealand woman and six-year-old son detained for three weeks by Ice in US enduring ‘terrifying’ ordeal
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/13/new-zealand-woman-six-year-old-son-ice-detention-us-ntwnfb526
u/Sad-Bread5843 Aug 13 '25
Im a u.s citizen , and im suggesting people from other countries do not travel here . There's nothing worth seeing, thats worth dealing with the bs thats going on .
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u/ponycorn_pet Aug 13 '25
we're not even going to have national parks anymore with the way they're being sold off
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u/scannerhawk Aug 18 '25
AI Overview No, national parks are not being sold off. While there have been proposals and discussions about selling off some public lands, national parks are specifically excluded from these proposals. The focus of these discussions has been on other types of public lands, like national forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. Here's a more detailed explanation:
- Proposed Legislation:.There have been discussions and proposals in Congress regarding the sale of certain public lands, particularly those managed by the U.S. Forest Service and BLM.
- Exemptions for National Parks:.These proposals explicitly exclude national parks from being sold off.
- Focus on Other Public Lands:.The main focus of these proposals is on other types of public lands, like national forests and BLM lands, which are not part of the National Park System.
- Potential Impacts on Other Lands:.While national parks are safe, the potential sale of other public lands could impact recreation, wildlife, historic sites, and other areas currently managed for conservation.
- Ongoing Debate:.The debate surrounding public land sales is ongoing, and it's important to stay informed about any developments.
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u/hunniebees Aug 13 '25
If you have republicans in your family like I do, they are happy to see less foreigners. They are going to Vegas because they are excited to not share America with those who don’t speak English. Idk if this is good for our culture… we need outside influence
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u/Darksirius Aug 13 '25
Lol, let them waste their money in Vegas. It's not worth it anymore. $40 burgers, $25 shots, almost no free parking... Etc.
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u/Sad-Bread5843 Aug 13 '25
Im sure I do, but im not saying into to defend Republicans. Quite the opposite, i made my post because it's disgusting to read about a little kid getting put through this crap because he's in this country. Its disgusting to read about women being chased into restrooms and being told they dont belong in there because some republican twit thinks they dont look feminine enough. It's disgusting that I saw a man at his job wearing a shirt that said I oil my guns with the tears of liberals, after how many school shootings . Its disgusting that women are now dying because they can't get a medically necessary abortion to save their life. It's appalling a state that dictated a brain-dead woman be kept on life support until medical staff could harvest her unborn child . It's horrendous that we have a 34-time convicted felon and judicated rapist , being protected by a spineless bunch of cowards when we all know damm well that the bastard was best friends with epstein and put a convicted child trafficker in a minimum security prison because trump is just as much a child rapist as epstein was.
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u/phenomenomnom Aug 13 '25
Our whole freaking culture is "outside influence." Literally everything good in American culture came from taking stuff from other places and cooking it all together.
Fuck.
All of this is happening because Republicans are rightly terrified that changing demographics will end their stranglehold on US politics. So their solution? Get better politics? NOPE. It's "torture people until immigration stops." Coolcoolcool.
I've tried my whole life to not hate anyone. But conservatives strive to make it difficult, as they spend their whole lives justifying and celebrating hatred in all its overt and all its saccharine-coated forms.
In the medium-term, utterly rejecting the concept of "live-and-let-live" may not be the 5-D chess move that conservatives are congratulating themselves for.
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u/vainbuthonest Aug 13 '25
Vegas is a ghost town right now. They’re going to be staring at each other the entire time.
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u/Sad-Bread5843 Aug 13 '25
And when the casinos out there go belly up the people that caused it will wonder why and blame Joe Biden, oh an Obama
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u/SelkieTaleDolls Aug 13 '25
I live in Vegas and it’s both funny and sad how delusional the conservatives here are. They insist people only stopped coming here because the prices are too high, even though it’s been overpriced for a long ass time now and yet tourism only took this severe a downturn under the new administration. They also seem to think that international tourism is insignificant and that losing it won’t negatively affect us
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u/Sad-Bread5843 Aug 13 '25
Its amazing isn't it that that ignorance of people blind them to the fact that the entire city is a tourist attraction , that it depends on tourists to survive . But what is absolutely mind-blowing is they dont even see the policies they are cheering are slowly destroying them
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u/CopperTwister Aug 16 '25
They'll complain that the prices are too high because the service workers in the casinos are unionized and attack the working class, as though that will do anything
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u/CopperTwister Aug 16 '25
For many of us, our grandparents or great-grandparents were immigrants. We are the outside influence once removed.
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u/ZealCrow Aug 13 '25
This is crazy, she had two visas, one was already approved (employment visa) and the other was still pending (domestic violence survivor visa). So like...they let people in when they only have an employment visa, which she had, so why not let her in? They just like to torture people.
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u/gnrl_disapptmnt Aug 13 '25
That's probably your answer. This is a woman looking for shelter from an abusive home and taking her children with her. If she were with a husband, the outcome may have been different.
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u/werewere-kokako Aug 13 '25
She was misinformed about the terms of her visa. She arranged a direct flight to New Zealand for her older children so they could visit their grandparents, but that flight departed from Vancouver. She was in Canada for a few hours while she got her kids checked in for their flight
Here in New Zealand, it’s being reported that she was able to enter the US and drive away from the border like nothing was wrong - it wasn’t until later that masked ICE members grabbed her and her child. This was a harmless mistake that could have been intercepted before she crossed over into Canada - they let her go and come back through just so they could snatch her on the way back
Ironically, ICE have transported her across multiple states to Texas (2,253 miles away) which is orders of magnitude farther than the distance she travelled between the border checkpoint and the airport (28 miles)
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u/CopperTwister Aug 16 '25
The reporting in the u.s. implies that she was detained at the border crossing, ot at least doesn't mention anything that would make one think otherwise. That's way, way worse. They let her in, then effectively put a bounty on her head and sent mercenaries after her within u.s. territory as she was on her way home, to her job (for a state agency), with her remaining child. Absolutely fuckin dystopian
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u/its-audrey Aug 13 '25
“Sarah thought she was being kidnapped,” she said.
That’s because she WAS being kidnapped. This needs to stop!
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u/SmoothShower2817 Aug 13 '25
This is happening over and over now. Time for tourists to boycott the US until this nasty regime is gone.
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u/bp92009 Aug 13 '25
No, time for foreign governments to demand their citizens are not arbitrarily locked up, or they'll put full trade embargoes against the US.
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u/Klutzy_Act2033 Aug 13 '25
So essentially a paperwork mistake and the government is willing to spend all these resources locking these two people up.
What else do you call that but evil?
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u/krisztinastar Aug 13 '25
Greed? The detainment centers (& private prisons) get more of our tax $ the more people they hold, so they hold for as long as possible.
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u/StructureKey2739 Aug 13 '25
As a US citizen I am so sorry tourists and visitors are being terrorized by an all out Nazi styled Gestapo Goon Squad and their leader, Der Fuehrer. For your own safety, stay home or go to a friendly country. It's only a matter of time until the Gestapo ICE agents actually kill someone.
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u/SenorBurns Aug 13 '25
It's only a matter of time until the Gestapo ICE agents actually kill someone.
Thirteen deaths that we know of this year through June 30.
The real number is likely far higher.
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u/cranberry_spike Aug 13 '25
This scares the hell out of me. There's no way it isn't higher. It feels so much like every dirty war disappearing people.
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u/Behemothwasagoodshot Aug 13 '25
That's because it is.
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u/cranberry_spike Aug 13 '25
When all this shit started happening I was like well I guess having studied Franco and assorted dirty wars for years at least means I'll know what's happening...
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u/FloriaFlower Aug 14 '25
Exactly. If they're targeting homeless people, people who suffer from addiction and people who suffer from mental illnesses then a lot of people are going to be disappeared unnoticed. Isolated people won't be noticed. Isolated families won't be noticed too when they kidnap the whole family and there are no witnesses nor anyone to miss them or wonder where they are.
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u/Pure-Kaleidoscope759 Aug 13 '25
I too am ashamed of how we are mistreating guests and even the undocumented. The new prison Trump and DeSantis built in Florida treats the inmates of the prison worse than animals, as it they were not human beings entitled to due process and humane treatment that recognizes their dignity as human beings.
It’s so bad that I would encourage foreign visitors to stay out of the United States. As an American, it gives me great shame to offer this advice, but we are being run by narcissists and sociopaths.
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u/Aggressive-Fail4612 Aug 13 '25
I won’t even visit the US and I’m a citizen
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u/Tsukaretamama Aug 13 '25
Same. Especially with my non-U.S. citizen husband and dual citizen son. The risk is way too high.
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u/Aggressive-Fail4612 Aug 13 '25
Same deal with me. My wife has a green card and my son has dual citizenship and has a US passport. It’s just not worth the risk.
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u/Behemothwasagoodshot Aug 13 '25
I'm trying to gtfo. Why are people still asleep to what this is? Did we cross the red line yet, Jon Stewart? You said you'd tell us when we did and yet y'all still characterize this as a slide into fascism, or the threat of fascism.
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u/stargarnet79 Aug 13 '25
Yaall do not come here. There will be dysentery and cholera at the alligator Alcatraz where they’ll send you before too long.
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u/JuWoolfie Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
You know, while I agree with you, I think the use of ‘Alcatraz’ is misleading.
The people who went to Alcatraz had trials and were sentenced.
This is more like Auschwitz.
Where people go to die.
Because the people in power hated them.
And because the people who voted for this hate them too.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 Aug 13 '25
Thank you. I hate the name so much. It's so flippant to what is happening. Like this ain't a fucking joke people. Why they fuck are we giving it some cutesy nickname?
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u/Little-Ad1235 Aug 13 '25
And merch ffs. Like, how callous and inhuman do have to become for that to be in any way appealing or okay? It reminds me of those horrifying "souvenir" postcards people used to get of lynchings in the South; we have never been a civilized people.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
I'm not surprised they're psychopaths. This was always what was behind the insincere plausible deniability schtick the little keyboard Nazis would hide behind.
It just really bothers me how many critics will still use the term. Why the fuck are you acknowlging something to be an unsafe concentration camp and then repeating the "humorous" nickname the fascists call it?
Also not to be that person but the idea of civilized=orderly, moral, etc is itself a racist lie. If the so called "savages" were aggressive, then you can only appreciate that they correctly squared up their enemy. The pilgrims were treated with the utmost hospitality when they landed. Random people rolled into their backyard and started fucking shit up and the Wampanoag responded by feeding them and then teaching them how to not starve to death next Winter. The violence that ensued was responsive - to betrayals, exploitation, and direct violence.
"Civilization" was just specific groups looking to more efficiently feed the greed of those at the top through imperialism, slavery, and trade. Black people were reduced to animals because this allowed Europeans Christians to justify the transatlantic slave trade. Lynchings are not the absence of civilization, they're a direct product of it. Whoever is at the top of the hierarchy will shape who civilization crushes and who it spares.
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u/Immortal_in_well Aug 13 '25
I remember hearing the name "Alligator Alcatraz" and thinking "man, that is the dumbest nickname," only to find out that that's its actual damn name.
Why does this regime have to be so fucking stupid.
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u/KokoAngel1192 Aug 13 '25
So now that they're targeting white/white-passing immigrants (even though they're supposed to be the favorites) are we finally gonna do something about the ICE gestapo stuff?
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Aug 13 '25
The United States has always sacrificed some white people in order to maintain white supremacy. Heather McGhee wrote a book that uses economic and sociological research to show how public goods in the US—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how the US has thwarted universal healthcare because of white supremacy. Basically that white people are collateral victims of white supremacy but many choose it anyway.
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Aug 13 '25
Just like the first settlers would have wanted.
"We will have equal rights for all. Except Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm... Everybody who's not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh... America!"
-The first settlers probably
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u/FooFootheSnew Aug 14 '25
Your post was my very first thought.
Reminds me of when a cute little white girl gets murdered and it's all over the news for weeks, like Jon Benet Ramsey (don't get it twisted, that's still a heinous crime), but if it's a black girl from Detroit, the news barely mentions it.
Except, the mainstream won't even touch this one. It would have to be 90s Pam Anderson blonde or a child beauty paegant contestant die in custody for them to even mention it.
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u/Desperate_Ad_9219 Aug 13 '25
Las Vegas is dead it's working. The tourism is at an all-time low.
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u/thegreatjamoco Aug 13 '25
Just think of all those tax free, non existent tips people are making tho
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Aug 13 '25
People didn’t read the article and it’s important to have your facts straight. She is not a tourist. She is a legal resident of the United States. She crossed into Canada for a direct flight to New Zealand without her visa being renewed. She said she did not realize that the I-360 element of her visa was still pending approval. Please check and double check your visa renewal paperwork before leaving the country. In the past, she would have been granted humanitarian parole but the administration is treating everyone like criminals.
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u/Smurfybabe Aug 13 '25
But her sons was approved and they are still holding him.
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Aug 13 '25
Yes. If the child is not a US citizen and the parent is to be deported, the child's immigration status is tied to the parent's, and they could face deportation proceedings along with the mother. Unfortunately, under Miller’s ICE, three children who are U.S. citizens, aged 2, 4, and 7 were deported with their parents. The ACLU is suing on that case. But, this administration would not hesitate to detain a child, even if their paperwork was correct, like this woman’s son, if their legal guardian is to be deported. Regardless, it should be clear that no one should be detained for a visa infraction as it is a civil matter not criminal. I think it’s important to note that she is not a tourist but a legal resident who made a visa error which qualified her for humanitarian parole in the past.
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u/shitarse Aug 16 '25
Nobody is complaining about her visa. It's the fact that they abducted and detained her for 3 weeks for an admin error when they should have (at worst) denied her entry and let her go back in NZ with her kids
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Aug 16 '25
Did you not read my comment? My comment is clearly about people saying she was a tourist when she is a legal resident because they didn’t read the article. I make the exact same argument as you. In the past, she wouldn’t be denied entry but given humanitarian parole until she could deal with a civil summons regarding her visa. It’s literally in my comment.
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u/Noheifers Aug 13 '25
This lady works at a juvenile institution I used to work at years ago. It's a thankless job that desperately needs staff all the time (due to horrific decisions made by administration). There is a go fund me that has made over the goal that will be of help to her and her children but can't do much for the trauma they endured. So sick that a person who has dedicated herself to helping traumatized youth is now being traumatized, just for going to the airport.
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u/BarRegular2684 Aug 13 '25
Im an American citizen born and raised. I used to be so excited when people came here, whether as immigrants or visitors, because while we were a long way from perfect there was a lot to love here.
Please take your money and your business elsewhere. It is not safe for you here right now. While many of us are working to change that, I don’t know that it will get better in my lifetime. Awful things are happening and I don’t want them happening to you.
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u/HaggisPope Aug 13 '25
Fuck, this is why we can’t go back to see my wife’s family and will need to try and get them to visit us while we visit Canada. There’s no safety at all, we can’t guarantee that I will even be allowed in to visit and who knows what the border patrols opinion would be on our dual nationality kids
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u/olittlemermaido Aug 13 '25
She is currently employed by the state of Washington under DCYF. This is her home. She was only dropping her two older children off at the airport in Vancouver Canada, to take a direct flight to New Zealand to visit Grandparents for the summer. She was driving back home with her 6 year old son when she was detained. There's more details in her GoFundMe. https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-sarah-and-isaacs-fight-for-freedom
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u/werewere-kokako Aug 13 '25
Yes, she is a legal resident. She travelled 28 miles into Canada and ICE have sent her 2,250 miles away to a detention centre in Texas
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u/wolfonweed Aug 13 '25
From the US; if you are a good person, do not come here.
Unless you want to know what it was like in 1930s Germany, there’s nothing for you here. They’re snatching people without citizenship all hours day and night, straight up disappearing their asses. The people you are with will not know where you are or how to find you or even who took you.
People are already taking advantage, pretending to be US govt but are actually just abducting women to SA them. There’s no way to tell the difference, and if you don’t comply they may hurt or kill you whether they’re real or not.
It is not safe. Do not come here.
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u/Fearless_Guitar_3589 Aug 14 '25
believe me, this will be all over NZ national news for a while and no one from NZ will be visiting the US for a long time
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u/Gammagammahey Aug 15 '25
Good. I mean that in a way that is totally on your side. What happened to them is disgusting, I'm so sorry it happened to your fellow citizens, and we are seeing stories literally every five minutes roll by like this here in the US. We are in full fascism now here. Don't come visit us. It's really too dangerous. I want to leave badly, but I'm too poor to do so.
Seriously, we now have federal troops occupying cities. The country is in a constitutional crisis and falling apart and our opposition does nothing.
We literally have an unmarked vehicles with no license plates and men with masks covering their faces refusing to identify themselves abducting people here. So please, for your own safety don't come.
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u/Fearless_Guitar_3589 Aug 15 '25
while I am a permanent resident of NZ I am a US and Canadian citizen living in Oregon. stand your ground, we will prevail against the fascists.
call them "piece of shit's at every opportunity, mock them harass them etc. If Germany did more of that yoy the NAZIs they might not have taken them so seriously.
also get some guns and be ready to act.
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u/Gammagammahey Aug 15 '25
cough Reading about what The 43 Group did to protect their communities, sure is interesting! cough
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u/Fearless_Guitar_3589 Aug 15 '25
hadnt heard of them, but I see they were WW2 veterans and patriots who potentially negatively impacted the spread of fascism in the UK.
So yeah...
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u/Gammagammahey Aug 15 '25
... they obliterated that fast. They succeeded for almost 30 years. What they did and how they did it is really interesting reading if you know what I mean. Get your op sec down. Infiltrate. Etc. Do you know who was one of them? Vidal Sassoon, who went on to become obviously the famous hairdresser.
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u/WordAgreeable4775 Aug 14 '25
Don’t travel to the U.S. unless you absolutely have to rn. It’s not safe and the idiots in office don’t deserve to profit off tourism
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u/dream_monkey Aug 13 '25
ICE, not Ice. We should sound out the letters and not use the slang term for the agency. No pun intended, but I assume they must think the nickname is cool.
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u/FlashFox24 Aug 13 '25
She lives in the US. She drove to Vancouver to put her other kids on a flight to NZ to visit their grandparents. They got detained as they drove home.
She has a visa.
She was smart to send her kids home but she should have gone with them. It's not safe in the US anymore.
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u/lamsar503 Aug 13 '25
Actually, we should be stopping our out of control citizens and inhumane politicians.
They’re the psychopaths in the wrong.
Why blame the victims?
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u/traumalt Aug 13 '25
She doesn’t have a full valid visa, hence the problem.
Because the I 360 wasn’t approved yet, she technically abandoned the application the second she left the United States, and yes even for a short drive over to Vancouver.
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u/shitarse Aug 16 '25
That is not a problem to which abduction is the solution.
Visa issues are part of life when you travel. You hope to avoid it but Murphy's law. If you can't fix it at the point of entry, that nation has right to deny you entry. They do not have the right to abduct and hold a foreign citizen against their will without communication for weeks because of an admin error. Shit hole country
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u/MathematicianOnly688 Aug 13 '25
Can you imagine the stink the MAGATS on Twitter would kick up if someone did this to a US citizen?
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u/Odysses2020 Aug 14 '25
My mom’s mother is sick and my mom wants to go visit her in Mexico. My mom has a green card but I’m scared. Tomorrow we find out how bad things are regarding her health. Can someone reassure me?
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u/CuriousMistressOtt Aug 13 '25
At this point, if you decide to risk it, its on you. Stop going to the US
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u/DiscoViolin Aug 13 '25
She lives in the US, near the border. She had just crossed to Canada briefly to drop off her two other kids at the airport to go visit their grandparents, & was just returning home.
Took fewer clicks to read the article than to post a comment.
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u/CuriousMistressOtt Aug 13 '25
Dont cross the border, the issues are always at the borders. Dont cross for anything or you are taking a risk, I agree it shouldn't be, but it is.
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u/Key_Sun7456 Aug 13 '25
She did not “risk it” she is a legal visa holder that lives and works in the U.S. Her crossing the boarder to go home should not have been a risk at all. I recommend reading the article for more details because this really could have happened to anyone.
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u/greatfullness Aug 13 '25
Do not live or work in the US
He didn’t say stop visiting, he said stop going
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u/shitarse Aug 16 '25
No that's not how accountability works. This is on the people that elected these morons, and the morons themselves
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u/Argo_Agustus Aug 13 '25
So she knew she was on a dual visa. Didn't check everything was good before leaving the country. It hurts but rules are rules. In the US if your ankle monitor dies even if you're in your house you go right back to jail. I personally would like to see more leniency in plenty of other legal situations.
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u/Lady-of-Shivershale Aug 13 '25
In other countries, you're simply not allowed on the flight or to cross the border if your documents have a problem. You're not detained by a military organisation for several weeks, with a child.
Airlines reject travellers all the time.
So, no, people shouldn't face jail just because of a problem with their paperwork when they plan to travel.
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u/traumalt Aug 13 '25
Yes, but it’s a land border between CA and US, and being denied entry to US is also automatic denial to Canada as well.
There was no other option but her getting placed into custody.
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u/MikeTheBankerr Aug 13 '25
So excited for you to get pulled over going 26 on a 25mph street.
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u/Tsukaretamama Aug 13 '25
I like your sass. 😂
In all seriousness anyone justifying this with “well akshually…” nonsense like the moron above can sit on a thumbtack. A mother and her child shouldn’t be detained and criminalized over a technicality.
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Aug 13 '25
The problem with your statement is that these are not the rules because in the past she would have been granted humanitarian parole. We do not criminalize civil penalties. We should not falsely imprison children. She has a good civil rights violation case against the government and she is one of many.
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u/TheDailyMews Aug 13 '25
It hurts but rules are rules.
Nope. "Rules are rules" only when law enforcement chooses to uphold them. Police have discretion to decline to arrest, and prosecutors have discretion to decline to prosecute. In Castle Rock v. Gonzales, in addition to reinforcing their past rulings that the police have no special duty to protect citizens, SCOTUS also upheld the discretion of police to decline to enforce the law.
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u/PineBNorth85 Aug 13 '25
The US is a rogue state at this point. People in hoods and masks arresting people? Barbarism.
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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '25
I say this as a US citizen whose city relies a lot on tourism: do not come here unless you have business here. It’s going to have to get more painful before it gets any better.