A British family has been deported back to the U.K. by U.S. immigration officials after being detained for nearly two weeks for “accidentally” crossing the border from B.C. to Washington state.
Aldea The People’s Justice Centre, which represents Eileen and David Connors, said Wednesday they have learned from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that the family has been “removed to the U.K.,” likely overnight.
The lawyers say deportations from the Berks County detention centre in Pennsylvania, where the family was being held, “typically” happen between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. when families are woken up, asked to pack their belongings, and are taken to the airport.
“The government rarely provides any information regarding travel arrangements due to safety reasons,” Aldea said in a statement. “We have no other information at this time.”
In a statement, ICE confirmed the Conners have been “successfully repatriated back to the United Kingdom.”
The family’s lawyers say the detainees were two related families: a couple with twin two-year-old girls, and a couple with a three-month-old child.
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According to a sworn statement by Eileen Connors, which forms the basis of a complaint to the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, the group was driving near the border north of Lynden, Wash., when they made “a very brief detour on an unmarked road to avoid an animal.”
The family had been in Vancouver visiting relatives when the incident happened on Oct. 3, according to their lawyers.
Connors says the family was pulled over and arrested by authorities, despite their protestations that they had crossed the border by accident.
Video released Wednesday by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office shows a vehicle stop on Zero Avenue after an unknown animal walks onto the road in front of the family.
The vehicle is then seen crossing the grass ditch that serves as the U.S.-Canada border onto Boundary Road in Lynden and drives down the road towards the camera, which is mounted at the border crossing.
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No fence or major markings exist in that area indicating the two roads are on opposite sides of the border, according to the family’s lawyers.
The video corroborates an earlier statement from a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson, who said the family was actually arrested on Oct. 2 around 9 p.m.
The agency claims that Canada refused to allow the family to return north of the border, and that two attempts to contact the U.S. consulate were unsuccessful.
The Canadian Border Services Agency declined to comment on the case, citing privacy laws.
Global News has requested comment from the UK Foreign Office.
The family has said they were initially kept in “very cold” gender-segregated cells. They claim they slept on the floor with only metallic emergency blankets and were given no information or opportunity to contact their family.
Conners said her husband was taken to a ICE detention centre in Tacoma, Wash. the next day, while she and the baby were put in a motel in Seattle. It is unclear from the statement what happened to the other couple at that point.
She said that the family was then flown from Seattle to the detention centre in Berks County, Pa. on Oct. 5.
“Just like the cells where the border officers took us the first night, this facility is frigid,” she said.
“When I ask how I am supposed to keep my baby warm in this horrible cold, all they tell me is to put a hat on him.”
Conners said she was finally given the chance to speak with the British Embassy on Oct. 8, after her mother in the U.K. contacted British diplomatic authorities in the U.S., at which point conditions began to improve.
“We have been treated like criminals here, stripped of our rights and lied to,” says the statement.
“No one should have to suffer this kind of treatment. This would never happen in the United Kingdom to U.S. citizens or anyone else, because people there are treated with dignity.”
In its statement, ICE said the Berks County detention centre “provides a safe and humane environment for families as they move through the immigration process,” and is regularly awarded “exceptional ratings” for health and safety.
In its statement Wednesday, Conners’ lawyers said they’re hopeful the family’s situation will shed more light and attention on the several other families with children Aldea is representing.
Of the 27 children who remain detained at the Berks County facility, the law firm said nine of them are six years old or younger, one of whom has been kept for more than 100 days.
—With files from Simon Little
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