Irish Citizen overstayed his US visa by 3 days, spent 100 days in detention

I really enjoy reading articles like this. They make me think. There's a bit of a disconnect between the real story and the headline.  

Irish Citizen overstayed visa by 3 days, detained 100 days

At first, I thought, "Oh no! Those ICE troopers grabbed this guy and threw him in the dungeon!" As I read the story, it painted Thomas (a nickname, used fearing further consequences) as a victim of excessive immigration enforcement. Let's review his timeline.

He visited his girlfriend Malone (likely not her real name) in West Virginia in the fall of 2024, having 90 days to visit. He planned to leave in December. In October, he "badly tore his calf" and the doctor told him not to travel for 8-12 weeks. The risk of blood clots, you know. It meant he would have to stay slightly past the expiration of his visa on 08-Dec. He sent paperwork from his doctor to "the Irish and US embassies and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seek an extension, but it was short notice and he did not hear back," the Guardian quotes him as saying. 

Somehow, they visited her family in Savannah GA (a journey of about 450 miles) without traveling (presumably the doctor meant air travel and they drove?), and there he suffered a "mental health episode" which manifested as a hotel room argument with his girlfriend.

Someone overheard the argument and called the police, who arrested Thomas for "falsely imprisoning" Malone. He was released on bond, and then picked up by ICE, presumably on 11-December 2024. He immediately volunteered for deportation to Ireland.

He was moved about 100 miles, to Folkston GA. After about two months in detention there, Thomas thought he was going home in mid-February. Instead, he and about 50 others were put on the white bus and moved to a federal correctional facility in Atlanta. There he spent another lovely month with real criminals. Presumably he learned valuable skills like tying knots and whittling useful items from tableware, and how to win friends and influence people. The Bureau of Prisons put them into cells with dirty mattresses, cockroaches and mice, and bad clothes. They were only allowed to flush the toilet in their cell three times each hour. 

There is more to the article, like after they sent 50 people to the prison, the next week they sent 30 of them back to Folkston, and the next week two of the 30 came back to the prison. The implication was that the immigration authorities didn't know what they were doing, but it's not easy to manage 58,000 detainees when you only have 41,000 beds and sometimes you have to make do with what you've got, do you feel me?

MENTAL HEALTH EPISODE

But I stopped reading at that point because I wanted to know more about this "mental health episode." Is that an industry term? When you yell at your girlfriend so loudly that someone calls the cops, it's not your fault because the anti-depressants didn't kick in, or what? Guys, I know what it's like to want to yell at your significant other. Couples fight all the time, mostly over money, sex, and kids. But you've gotta take the long view. If you're three days past the expiration of your visa, you've gotta dial that back to where any innocent person in a nearby hallway or hotel room won't call the cops. You can't just turn it up to 11 and go for it. You'll always regret it and especially if you get arrested for it. 

Secondly, when the cops do come, you and your girlfriend need to tell them that that's how you enjoy your private time, role playing like old married couples. That in hotel rooms, it's pretend all the time, 24/7. Sometimes you play doctor and nurse, boss and secretary, strangers in an elevator, whatever keeps the interest going. Makeup sex is the best, she should tell them. But somehow, the cops interpreted the story as "false imprisonment?" Was part of the explanation that Thomas tied Malone up and then gave her the old what for as loudly as he could? What would he shout, I wonder? "So, you thought that you could make me eat your mother's cooking and I wouldn't be angry after?!? I thought that my butt exploded and the hotel people are going to charge us an extra fee!! You know that if that happened to me in prison they would make me use a single roll of paper for a week! A solid week! Did you ever think of that! NO!! You didn't!"

I can only imagine that she might have challenged him back. "At least my mother can cook! You can't cook! You'd make a terrible housewife! Look at you in that apron right now! Admit it. It's really silly. Can I have my apron back for later?!" Somehow, Malone didn't manage to communicate to the police that she was a participant, not a victim. How could she watch them take him and not prevent it? It doesn't say in the article, but I suspect she wanted him to go to a hospital, and perhaps her comments and expectations lay in that general direction. But she stood (or sat, who really knows?) there and watched them take him. I can only assume that whatever evidence they had for an arrest came from her, verbally. 

In the absence of facts, the mind reels with the conceit that we understand the human condition. But the struggle is real. We never know what battle the people we see in hotel lobbies are fighting. I don't expect to ever know, but there are other aspects of this story that I find curious. 

WHEN WAS THAT ARREST?

Thomas was arrested on or about 11-December, transferred to a prison in mid-February, and deported in March - and told that he was banned from the US for 10 years. But hang on, he was arrested in December in Savannah GA. The president was still Joe Biden, and Stephen Miller and Tom Homan were not in any position to detain him. The kinder gentler administration somehow got word that he was in Savannah and had overstayed his visa and picked him up. My primary suspect is Malone, who I think had enough of this calf-tearing psycho who wore out his welcome at her parents' house. I guess ICE was really busy, what with the holidays coming on, and then a new administration coming in. Thomas fell into a crack. Detainees would shout to the guards, "Can I talk to Mr ICE? I want to go home! I'm innocent!" and the guard would not reply. 

This bears consideration. He spent 40 days in ICE custody prior to the inauguration of the new government. During that time, did he not have due process, and an immigration lawyer? Why was his detention under the Biden administration so long, and his undescribed efforts to return home so unsuccessful? The paper wants to quote him as saying that it was all about cruelty for its own sake, but those reports didn't start circulating until March. It seems to me like Thomas wants to characterize his final month in that miserable federal prison as his entire time in detention, and that's not supported by the facts. 

Fast forward two months, we have a new administration, and they move some of these guys to a real prison, maybe to make room for newer detainees because now Mephistopheles Miller is on the loose and he wants bigger numbers. The real prison has bugs and mice and dirty mattresses and dirty clothes and the guards there won't answer you and come on, people! All Thomas wants to do is go home. He may have missed hearings on his false imprisonment charge, but the Guardian didn't mention that. He didn't like the food, they didn't get as much toilet paper as he wanted, and he couldn't flush as often as he wished. I'm confident that the federal prison system will coach the snowflake right out of a fellow. Still, Thomas comes across to me as a whiner, and it's become clear that by late February that he and Malone had broke up, maybe for good. She was probably back in West Virginia with some other Irish divorcee, another engineer from another tech firm, trying to convince him what a great cook her mother is back in Savannah. Once a girl has a type, it's really hard to change. 

I'm not really upset with Malone or Thomas or the Bureau of Prisons, and especially not Holiday Season ICE. I'm a bit tweaked that the Guardian seemed really focused on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and not the ways that Thomas voluntarily stepped into the situations he, well, he created. Sure, 100 days seems like a while to be inconvenienced for being 3 days overdue and having a doctor's note and all. But the Guardian writes:

Thomas’s ordeal follows a rise in reports of tourists and visitors with valid visas being detained by Ice, including from Australia, Germany, Canada and the UK. 

I think his ordeal PRECEDED the rise in reports of detention, and that the Guardian should have spent a bit more time pointing out that he was a holdover. He had 40 days to get an immigration lawyer and get home before the Philistines took over in DC. 

So what have we learned from this sordid tale? First off, don't tear your calf. It hurts badly and can jeopardize your compliance with your visa. Second, avoid mental health episodes when they might escalate into an arrest. This is very important. Once you're in the car, and your visa is expired, you have fallen into the spider web of Stephen Miller and unpleasantness is sure to follow. And most importantly, if you're going to read a news article, try to see through the bias and use your own judgment about the facts. 

Even when you're reading The News You Need to Know.