Canadian actor and businesswoman Jasmine Mooney returned to Vancouver on March 15 after she was detained and transferred three times to different detention centers for roughly two weeks by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Mooney, who is known for American Pie Presents: The Book of Love and iZombie was detained on March 3 after she tried to reapply for a work visa at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego where her lawyer was.
She told reporters waiting for her at Vancouver International Airport’s arrivals area:
“I’m still, to be honest, really processing everything."
“I haven’t slept in a while and haven’t eaten proper food in a while, so I’m just really going through the motions.”
According to CTV News, Mooney, who had been living in Los Angeles, claimed officials never explained why she was being held and when she would be able to leave.
She was never informed about why she was detained, even as she was being transported from a detention center in Arizona to San Diego to board an outbound flight to Canada.
“No one told me anything. Not once,” Mooney told reporters. "I was given no heads up with anything that was about to transpire."
She noted how the guards who were escorting her were also "very confused as well" after looking through all of her relevant documentation.
The co-founder of LA-based wellness water brand Holy! Water continued:
“I still don’t even know how I’m home. My friends and my family and the media are the reason, I think, that I’m home.”
According to Entertainment Weekly, Mooney connected with CTV News via phone from San Luis Regional Detention in Arizona before she was released.
When asked about her experience at the detention centers she stayed in, Mooney described them as "the most inhumane thing I've ever seen."
She said, "I have no idea when I'm going to leave. Without any warning about what was about to transpire, I was literally just taken."
When a reporter asked Mooney if she thought her ordeal might have had anything to do with Republican President Donald Trump's executive order cracking down on illegal immigration, she replied:
“I honestly…I really have no idea. I don’t want to point fingers at anything. I really…I don’t know. But, obviously, people can speculate what they want.”
Mooney mentioned that a woman she had met at one of the detention centers had been held by ICE for ten months.
“When I got to know everyone else in there, and heard all of their stories and how long they were in there, I was like, ‘OK, I’m not allowed to feel sorry for myself at all, because every single person in here is in a way worse situation than me."
As the actor is still trying to process everything that's happened to her, she is certain of one thing.
"No one deserves to go through what I witnessed," she said.
You can watch the full interview here.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
