What it’s like to be trapped in an ICE detention center for two weeks

Magic technology, Meta layoffs, and smart quitting (Issue #293)

Here at Medium, there’s a type of story we sometimes refer to as the “Medium version.” Usually, it’s a personal perspective on news. Not a take; a story from a primary source — someone who’s lived through something most of us have only heard about second- or thirdhand.

On Wednesday, Jasmine Mooney published one of those stories, about her 12-day detention by ICE. Mooney is Canadian; earlier this year, she was working for a U.S. beverage company on a TN work visa (a special nonimmigrant visa that allows Canadians to work in the U.S.). She was stopped in San Diego on March 3rd because of an earlier paperwork issue she’d experienced when reapplying for her visa — and, without warning, she was abruptly jailed for two weeks.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, you are not in trouble, you are not a criminal,” an immigration enforcement agent told her — before taking off her shoes, pulling out her shoelaces, and leading her to a “tiny, freezing cement cell” where five other women lay on mats.

While in detention, Mooney met people who’d been there up to 10 months, none of whom had a criminal record. “Their frustration wasn’t about being held accountable ” for (in some cases) overstaying their visas, she writes, “it was about the endless, bureaucratic limbo they were trapped in.” None of them knew when they’d get out. Here’s one example:

There was a girl from India who had overstayed her student visa for three days before heading back home. She then came back to the US on a new, valid visa to finish her master’s degree and was handed over to ICE due to the three days she had overstayed on her previous visa.

(My question: If she’d previously overstayed and this was an issue, why was she given a new, valid visa?)

Mooney was eventually released because a friend leaked her story to a reporter. Many of the women Mooney was detained with don’t have her connections and privileges. “This is why I choose to tell their stories,” Mooney writes, “Because when we choose to see each other — when we refuse to look away — we begin to build the world we all deserve.”

To me, what stands out is the fragmented, confusing system in which these people find themselves — and the fact that Mooney was never told what’s going on or why she was held. It’s a powerful complement to coverage of immigration detention I’ve seen elsewhere. It’s raw, unfiltered, and hyperdetailed (the plastic spoon that each detainee has to reuse for every meal will stay with me for a while). It’s also a “Medium version,” an example of the kind of story that can only exist on a platform where people are empowered to share their own perspectives and deepen each other’s understanding daily.

— Harris Sockel

✨ Also today…

• John Battelle, who helped launch WIRED in the ’90s, mourns the loss of tech that feels genuinely magical (remember how your first personal computer felt?). He believes we’ve lost that signature feeling of ~wonder~ because we’ve sacrificed agency for convenience. Computers and early desktop publishing software challenged us; they didn’t simply make tasks easier.
• Technical recruiter Dori Kasa reacts to February’s layoffs at Meta (approximately 3,600 people were let go for “low performance”): “Instead of hiding behind that ‘low performance’ label, companies should just be honest. The truth isn’t always glamorous — it could be financial issues, scaling back, or even fixing poor past decisions. But employees deserve that honesty.”
• Designer Vicki Tan (Spotify, Headspace, Lyft, and Google) shares a few ideas for redesigning nonfiction books (e.g. cookbooks that “adapt to your skill level or make use of ingredients that are actually in your fridge”).

🧠 A dose of practical wisdom

People tend to be much more deliberate about what they start than what they stop. Scott H. Young shares four questions (and pointers) to keep in mind before quitting anything, including: set your quitting point in advance to prevent yourself from making a decision based on momentary temptation or exasperation.

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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