German tourists are fighting to be denied entry to the San Diego border and released from immigration detention centers after being detained last month by US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Jessica Brosch, a 26-year-old German tattoo artist, is in indefinitely detained on US customs and border security after attempting to enter San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico on January 25th, along with her close American friend Amelia Lofving. The two were traveling with tattoo equipment.
“I just want to go home, Brösche told ABC News 10News in a phone interview from the detention facility.
Designer Lofving had just moved to Los Angeles and met with plans to travel across the border to Los Angeles with Brochet in Tijuana, but Brochet never reached the city.
Brösche had a German passport, a confirmation of Visa exemption and a copy of his return ticket to Berlin, Lofving said. However, she was still pulled aside for secondary inspections by US customs and border agents.
Brouch said he then spent several days detained in a cell on the San Diego border before being detained on the ice. The agency took her to the Otay Mesa detention center.
According to KPBS, the US Customs and Border Patrol accused Brouch of planning to violate the terms of the visa waiver program, with the intention of working as a tattoo artist during his time in Los Angeles.
According to ABC’s 10News, she was forced to spend eight days in solitary confinement at the facility.
“She says it was like a horror movie. They were screaming in all different rooms. Nine days later, she got so crazy that she started punching the walls and then she said she has blood on her fingers,” Lofving said of her friend’s experience.
Lofving asks ice agents if they could send Brösche back to Mexico, but replies that the lack of legal residence means she will be repatriated to Germany. Lofving also said she tried to get help from the German consulate in Los Angeles.
Lofving initially didn’t know where Brösche was being held or whether she had already been deported to Germany. It was the first time she was able to track her friends online, using the Federal Detainee Locator website.
It will take 25 days before she is allowed to find her friend and visit her at the remaining detention center.
