I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks

Power and behavior of border authorities

• Many see frontline border/ICE officers as low-accountability “bullies” with excessive discretionary power, including the ability to revoke visas and trigger life‑altering consequences.
• Others argue all countries must treat every crosser as a potential violator; strict, even intimidating behavior is framed as necessary deterrence.

Legal status, visas, and responsibility

• A major subthread dissects her TN visa: claims she self‑sponsored via a company she co‑founded (forbidden under TN rules) and worked with a hemp/THC-adjacent product, possibly triggering extra scrutiny.
• Some say she knowingly “gamed the system,” including reapplying at a different border after a prior denial and visa revocation; others counter that reapplying is lawful, that “fraud” is unproven, and that she followed officers’ instructions.
• Several note that even if visa issues were serious, the normal response at a port of entry is refusal of admission and return, not prolonged detention.

Detention conditions and due process

• Commenters describe the 24/7 lights, cold cells, foil blankets, and systemic “we don’t know” answers as psychological abuse and de facto punishment without charge.
• Debate over constitutional and human rights: legally, non‑citizens present in the US have due‑process protections, but many argue these are routinely ignored in border/ICE environments.
• The opacity and lack of recourse are likened to authoritarian systems and Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

Private detention and incentives

• Strong focus on ICE’s reliance on private contractors (CoreCivic, GEO Group). Thread cites their revenue and per‑detainee payment structure as a textbook perverse incentive to maximize detention length and numbers.
• Some propose banning private detention and imposing performance metrics (e.g., maximum processing times) on government agencies.

Impact on travel, immigration, and conferences

• Many Canadians and Europeans say they are now avoiding US travel, even for shopping or tourism; some report canceled vacations and business trips.
• Academics discuss moving conferences out of the US and note at least one standards committee already did so over safety/visa concerns.
• Several immigrants and permanent residents in North America express new fear about leaving and re‑entering, even when fully documented.

Comparisons with other countries

• Some insist “every country is like this,” citing strict treatment in Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and UK; others, including multilingual travelers, say US (and some other anglophone countries) are notably more hostile.
• There’s clarification that Australia’s notorious offshore camps are mainly for boat arrivals, not routine overstays, and that most countries simply deny entry and deport rather than warehouse people for weeks.

Politics, rights, and authoritarian drift

• Many connect this to a broader US democratic backslide: mass detentions, deportations to third countries, ideological purges, and the use of fear as policy.
• Others argue this system predates the current administration and both parties have enabled it; what’s new is intensity and openness, not the basic architecture.

Meta-discussion about coverage

• Significant frustration that posts like this are heavily flagged on HN, which some interpret as politically motivated suppression or fatigue with US politics.
• Others cite HN guidelines against mainstream political news and argue such threads reliably devolve into partisan flamewars, as visible in this discussion.