A French woman spent two weeks in an American detention centre after accidentally stepping foot on U.S. soil near the Peace Arch border crossing last month.
Cedella Roman, 19, who was visiting her mother in North Delta, said she was jogging along the Semiahmoo Bay waterfront May 21 and inadvertently crossed the Douglas (Peace Arch) port of entry.
At the end of her jog, Roman turned and headed back to Canada when she was apprehended by two U.S. border patrol officers, she told CBC News.
“An officer stopped me and started telling me I had crossed the border illegally,” she said. “I told him I had not done it on purpose and that I didn’t understand what was happening.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) officers told her she had entered illegally.
An USCBP spokesperson told Peace Arch News Friday that the agency cannot provide information on the case due to the privacy act, but did offer a statement.
“If an individual enters the United States at a location other than an official port of entry and without inspection by a Customs and Border Protection officer, they have illegally entered the United States and will be processed accordingly,” the statement said. “It is the responsibility of an individual traveling in the vicinity of an international border to maintain awareness of their surroundings and their location at all times to ensure they do not illegally cross the border. Additionally, it’s important for people traveling near the border to carry identification at all times, so that agents or officers can easily verify their identity.”
Roman’s was picked up media across Canada and around the world; shared by agencies ranging from BBC News and India Times to the Akron Beacon Journal.
Blaine immigration lawyer Len Saunders told PAN the incident is “a good lesson” both for Roman as well as Canadian citizens who “want to stroll near the border.”
“It shows you the problems you can get into at the U.S. border if you make an innocent mistake,” Saunders saidMonday, noting there is no border signage in the area Roman was picked up.
“Other than the American flags, there’s really nothing to say you’re in the U.S.”
Saunders said his contacts at border patrol told him Roman was “significantly inside the border” and “had mud all over her” when officers caught up to her on Blaine’s Marine Drive. He suspects she was spotted on cameras that keep a monitor the area 24/7.
As she isn’t Canadian, they couldn’t simply send her back across the border, he said.
After she was detained, Roman was reportedly transported to Tacoma Northwest Detention Centre, a facility operated by the Department of Homeland Security. Saunders described it as “not a nice place to be.”
“They put me in the caged vehicles and brought me into their facility,” Roman told CBC. “They asked me to remove all my personal belongings with my jewelry, they searched me everywhere.”
When Roman’s mother Christiane Ferne learned of her daughter’s incarceration, she collaborated with Immigration Canada to co-ordinate her release.
Roman was held in custody for two weeks before immigration officials on both sides of the border confirmed she was allowed back into Canada. She was then transferred back into B.C.
Saunders said paperwork shows Roman was discharged from the detention centre on June 6.
She was lucky to simply be returned to B.C., he said.
“Most of the time they send you to your home country.”
As a result of the incident, Roman will always need a visa to visit the U.S., he added.
Roman has yet to respond to a PAN request for comment.
