The Canadian entrepreneur and actor in the American Pie Film Franchise said he was detained for almost two weeks on “inhuman” conditions by US border authorities over an incomplete visa.
Jasmine Mooney and the actor who is also co-founder of The Beverage Brand Holy! Water was taken into custody in San Diego, California on March 3rd.
The 35-year-old Canadian’s work visa to the US was reportedly revoked in November during a trip from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and she was about to file a new application.
“All the guards watching me said, ‘What are you doing here? I don’t understand. I’m Canadian. How are you?” Mooney said she was in custody last week in an interview with ABC 10 from the Arizona Immigration Detention Center.
Her mother, Alexis Eagles, who lives in British Columbia, says Mooney was detained on March 3rd on an incomplete work visa application, crossing the world’s busiest land border. The Eagles told the Vancouver Sun to send her daughter to Canada or to amend her application, US customs and border guards arrested her.
Mooney has not been charged with a crime and has no prior criminal history.
She spent three nights in a detention center before being moved. “We learned that around 30 people, including Jasmine, were removed from the cell at 3am and moved to the San Luis Detention Center in Arizona,” the Eagles said.
“They are housed together in a single concrete cell with no natural light, no fluorescent lights, mats, blankets, no limited bathroom equipment.”
Every time Mooney was transferred, she was handcuffed and raised in a chain, the Eagles claimed.
Mooney told ABC 10 that she was appalled at the conditions inside the private detention facility in San Luis where she was kept.
“I’ve never seen anything more inhumane in my life,” she said. “I was put in the cell, no blankets or pillows, and had to sleep on the mat, wrapped around my body with aluminum foil.”
Mooney was featured in BC Business Magazine in 2019 for her work in the hospitality industry. According to her profile, she moved from Yukon to Vancouver in 2008 and studied at British Columbia Institute of Technology. From there she went to acting school before owning and operating the bar.
She said her mother had a three-year US visa as she tried to return to Los Angeles, where she lived, after spending vacations in Canada. It was unclear why Mooney’s previous visa was revoked and why she was at the southern border this month. However, she told ABC that she obtained her first visa across the San Isidro border on the advice of a Los Angeles lawyer.
The Guardian contacted US Customs and Border Patrol for comments.
Mooney was released over the weekend and landed at Vancouver International Airport shortly after midnight on Saturday morning.
“I’m still really handling everything, honestly,” Mooney told reporters waiting for her in the airport’s international arrivals area.
“I haven’t slept for a while and haven’t eaten proper food for a while so I’m just really moving,” she told CTV News.
“Thank you for all the messages of support. Sorry if I couldn’t reply to everyone. I went home after feeling like I had escaped a deeply disturbing psychological experiment,” she added in the post on her Instagram account.
