When Karen Newton left home in late July 2025, she knew that international travellers were being locked up in immigration detention centres in the US. “I was aware,” she nods. “But I never thought it would have any impact on my holiday.” Karen, 65, had a British passport and a tourist visa. She hadn’t been abroad for eight years, and was keen for some guaranteed sun. “I really just wanted to get away from the house.”

She and her husband, Bill, 66, had an ambitious itinerary that would take them through California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and then on to Canada over two months. Las Vegas wasn’t to Karen’s taste: “Way too commercialised.” She much preferred Yellowstone, where they saw Old Faithful, the famous geyser, as it shot boiling water into the air, and got up close with some extraordinary wildlife. “There was a bison right next to the car. Another time, a wolf walked past.” Her eyes sparkle at the memory. “It was just amazing.”

The dream holiday ended abruptly on Friday 26 September, as Karen and Bill were trying to leave the US. When they crossed the border, Canadian officials told them they didn’t have the correct paperwork to bring the car with them. They were turned back to Montana on the American side – and to US border control officials. Bill’s US visa had expired; Karen’s had not.

“I worried then,” she says. “I was worried for him. I thought, well, at least I am here to support him.”

And then we get to the heart of the matter:

So why did ICE detain her, and keep her locked up for so long? A possible answer began to emerge over the weeks she was incarcerated. As Karen got to know the guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center where she was held, she kept hearing the same thing from them: that ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that,” Karen says.

Totally sounds like something a functioning democracy would do.

1 comment

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[–] 2 points 8 months ago

Google voluntarily gave his info to ice.

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  • 58 comments in c/world@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 145 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    You have to be clinically insane to go to the US now.

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  • [–] 32 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    "I was aware", she says. What's the definition of insanity again?

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  • [+] -16 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Some people also visit North Korea. Is that insane too?

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago

    At this point, north korea is genuinely be a safer place to visit (if you have a visa). At least they provide you with a "guide" who tells you what to do and where to go, instead of just throwing you into a concentration camp straight away.

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  • [–] 95 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    So why did ICE detain her, and keep her locked up for so long? A possible answer began to emerge over the weeks she was incarcerated. As Karen got to know the guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center where she was held, she kept hearing the same thing from them: that ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that,” Karen says.

    It’s no secret that the Trump administration has been pouring money into ICE. Its annual budget – $6bn a decade ago – is now $85bn; ICE is now the highest -funded law enforcement agency in the US. Since last August, new recruits can expect to receive a signing-on bonus of up to $50,000. Karen’s experience has left her convinced that ICE agents are being given even more incentives – to arrest and detain anyone they possibly can, even blameless tourists who have all the paperwork they need to be in the US.

    Knew they had sign-up bonuses, but had no idea that ICE agents were also given a bonus for locking people up - that's an absolutely perverse incentive for a job that should be as objective as possible.

    No wonder innocent people are getting dragged off to detention centres (or worse), it literally pays for them to shoot now and ask questions later.

    Also, the US government has $80 billion to throw at bloodthirsty hounds, but had to send DOGE to scrounge through various agencies to find a few billion? Something doesn't quite add up there, almost like the incentive wasn't finding money.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago

    The main objective of doge was to export all agency data to thiel et al's private data banks. Their employees were recruited from those technofascist's drug and sex fueled parties, as young men, or underage young men, that were groomed for it.

    Cutting money was at most secondary, information is power and now thiel and whomever else have more than anyone else.

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  • [–] 68 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    So when are countries like the UK (and my own Australia) going to update official government travel advice to warn against travel to America?

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  • [–] 40 points 8 months ago* (4 children)
  • [–] 57 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    That's gotta be a joke right?

    The US Government is quite literally sending bloodthirsty hounds against their own people, and dragging innocent tourists off to detention centres for no reason, yet the UK is rated worse due to the couple of terror attacks we've had over the last year??

    I think I know where I'd rather take my chances as a tourist. Yikes.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    The UK is speedrunning the US to fascism, and they are ahead, even if they don't have a blowhard running the show, just a traitorous mealy mouthed tool of the oligarchy. Cancelling the magna carta, the right to protest, defenses to decades in prison for protesting, bad faith terror designations by their corrupts lawmakers, a masterbaitorbase, age controls, the last two of which to give Thiel access to everything to make secret social scores to use against the population.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    They won't because we are expected to toe the imperial line. We are a vassal state of the US.

    It's batshit that DFAT haven't issue a travel warning, I agree. There's warnings for China (reasonable), but damn, I feel no worry about travelling to China, just don't do anything political.

    I'd never in a million years consider travelling to the US.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Like someone else said, there are warnings for the UK. Certainly not a healthy country in 2026, but for the UK to be given a safety warning when the country with literal brownshirts roaming the streets does not is just absurd.

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  • [–] 48 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I can't wait for the Fifa world cup to start and see how disastrous that's going to be, I'm hoping some countries would boycott and not play.

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  • [–] 43 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    lol no country is not going to send their team, and most of their fans are excited to watch them play, they don't give a shit about the politics of it.

    You think too highly of them.

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  • [–] 49 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    The last two were in Russia and Qatar. A pattern has already formed.

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  • [–] 44 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    I think this ladies entire story speaks a bit to how modern day fascism is working and how our analysis of it is flawed in some ways when looking at the past.

    Racial supremacy and the core parts of fascism are still at the root of it. However, the fact that an elderly white British couple can be subject to this form of "just doing my job" ICE agents bringing them to these conditions. I think it should be a wake up call to anyone that thinks they "won't be a target".

    The current form of fascism is based on the vague notion of a "woke" or "demostic terrorist" or whatever. Any person can fall into these vague definitions.

    The "first they came for the communist" in an era when everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Xi Jingping is labeled as one. Well, there is no meaning to it. You will get marked as a dissonant and be treated as such. Not even your MAGA hat will save you if you give the wrong answers. We are truly hitting the false comfort of the "loyal German" when they were asked "papers please".

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  • [–] 43 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Well, at least she got the full murica experience. Yellowstone, Vegas, roughed up and thrown in an ICE detention center for 6 weeks...🙃

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Currently, I wouldn't want to go to USA even if you pay me. I literally put USA on same shit list as countries with prevalent terrorism and dictatorship that I'd never visit. Like Russia. Imagine being a western country and on that shit list...

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  • [–] 42 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    man out of all that's wrong with this I couldn't imagine how upset I'd be that I'd have wasted vacation time for this, it wouldn't be the biggest problem but it would be in the back of my head constantly like "wow sure is nice that I took time off work to be grabbed by americia's new slave catchers"

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Having been to Yellowstone I can say that that experience is ALMOST worth what she went through.

    The buffalo really do just come up to your car and YES they will fucking charge you. At least this couple got to enjoy that.

    Seriously, though. Spent a week at Yellowstone and could go another ten times and see new things each time. Just absolutely a beautiful gem of America and unlike any place I've been.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago

    Idk who needs to here it but Do Not Come Here. For your own good, cancel plans if you had them. If you have a work event, tell them you feel unsafe (because you sure af will be if you come to a fascist country).

    It is not safe.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    The second part of that title isn't needed in my opinion.
    "Don't go to the us...for a good decade or so. And only then if they realise just how fucked things were during the orange child rapist years."

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago

    Google voluntarily gave his info to ice.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    i think even north korea might be safer to go at this point

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago*

    So if I read this right

    They left the states and couldn't return because the guys visa wasn't valid anymore, but Canada turned them away because of the car.

    At that point you should probably apply for asylum now and refuse to go back to where you don't have valid papers anymore.

    Or have the person with no longer valid papers walk through if they'll let you and the other person go back.

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  • [+] -10 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    she knew that international travellers were being locked up in immigration detention centres in the US. “I was aware,” she nods. “But I never thought it would have any impact on my holiday.”

    “I am not a dangerous criminal. I didn’t enter the country illegally and I had everything I needed to be there.”

    Fuck the Trump administration, but also fuck this privileged bitch in particular

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    I understand your feelings but you should place your rage at the systems and structures of white privilege. Being upset at some random old white removed believing in her privilege is not helpful.

    Though it does feel good to vent out that rage sometimes. I get it.

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  • [+] -10 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    yea man as much as i hate victim blaming i really want people to NOT dress themselves in a toga stitched together out of raw meat before they leap down into the pit of starving hyenas >.>

    i wouldn't be so mean as to call that attempted tourist stupid but i would sympathetically tell them "that's rough buddy" before gesturing in their direction to address others with "please don't do what they did."

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago

    maye with the right kink?

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  • [+] -6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    They knew what's going on in US and still tried to cross the border with invalid visa (she had a valid visa but her husband's expired). There's a word for that: idiots.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    she had a valid visa

    I'm sorry, did you miss this part?

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago

    "Don't worry honey, if they stop us only I will go to the concentration camp. You will continue enjoying your holiday".

    ....

    "Oh no! They sent both of us to a concentration camp! Who could predicted that? I though ICE is following the law and never abuses their powers. Poor us!"

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  • 19 comments in c/news@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 20 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I paid extra to avoid a connection in an US airport

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Every week, ICE agents would visit the unit to update inmates about any developments on their cases, and tell them when they were going to leave the detention centre. “Their stock answer was ‘two weeks’ or ‘soon’.” One week, ICE didn’t turn up at all.

    They had the concepts of developments on their cases.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Not in my county of interest for many years.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago* (14 children)

    If you come here stay to blue states, otherwise the risk is too great.

    For now my EU UK friends, stay away.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago

    The problem is that if you're traveling here you're likely to be grabbed at customs as you're either entering or leaving the country so whether your final destination is a blue or red state is kind of irrelevant. While the current regime is in power it's safest for everyone to just avoid traveling to the US.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Isn't it the other way round: ICE pruposely bullys blue states (Among other reasons, because the red states need illegal immigrants as laborers) ?

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    That's their goal. You can either believe the shit you just said or know that blue states are where the push back is.

    Blue states will be there for all.

    Liberty

    Democracy

    Accountability

    Justice

    Edit

    Also HELLO NOBODY IN A RED STATE IS QUESTIONING ANYONE BEING TAKEN OR SAYING THIS IS CONSTITUTIONALLY WRONG! YOU JUST DISAPPEAR.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    I'm in favor of your position but this

    You can either believe the shit you just said

    is just rude and that way, you won't generate support for your position among people who don't already agree with you. I think that's counterproductive, because cooperation is the most effective weapon you have against a repressive state.

    I asked a simple question to understand the situation and you start insulting me.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Like minnesota? You are a silly american chuckles "you are in danger"

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  • [+] -6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I've got more guns than you I know that as fact and more bullets than anything else you've ever eaten.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Did you see that video demonstration of the drone strike from the 1990s? Your guns are as effective as taking your shoes off before you board a plane makes everyone safer. Good thing they didn't have guns at ruby ridge or waco texas... you're the guy who spends 5 years of time prepping to extend his life an extra 6 months eating canned food and being bored because spotify doesn't work and you cant get the joe rogan podcast. You better wake up from fantasy dreamland son.

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  • 6 comments in c/FuckTheUSA@lemmy.ca view that post
    [–] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Some people INSIST on learning the hard way.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    If the insanely armed and stupid US locals don't shoot you, the government might lock you up for weeks for no reason.

    I don't know why anyone would want to visit that shithole.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    The headline leaves out an important detail -- her husband did not have a valid visa.

    They were turned back to Montana on the American side – and to US border control officials. Bill’s US visa had expired; Karen’s had not.

    Her visa was valid, but it can be risky in general crossing any border with somebody who has invalid documents. Make of this what you will, but it is important context missing from the headline.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    This is probably the real reason

    she kept hearing the same thing from them: that ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that,” Karen says.

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  • 1 comment in c/theguardian_us@ibbit.at view that post
    [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Even when Trump isn't in charge any more, I won't go there until sanity returns. I'm quite old so i don't expect to see that happen within my lifetime.

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