OTAY MESA, Calif — A German tourist is fighting to get released from an immigration detention center after she was denied entry at the San Diego border and taken into custody by ICE last month.
“I just want to get home, you know? I’m really desperate,” Jessica Brösche told Team 10 in a phone interview from detention.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained the German tattoo artist after she tried to enter San Diego on January 25th from Tijuana with her American best friend. The two were traveling with tattoo equipment.
“I'm like, can you send her to Mexico? They're like, no, she has no legal residency. We're going to deport her to Germany. She's going to call you in three to five days,” said Nikita Lofving, who lives in Los Angeles and was walking across the border with Brösche.
As the two presented for inspection, Lofving said a customs officer flagged an issue with Brösche, who was entering the U.S. with the ESTA visa waiver program.
“Finally, after two hours, I get a call from Jessica … saying, ‘Hey, they're accusing me of working the last time I came on my ESTA and they're going to deport me to Germany.”’
Brösche told Team 10 she spent days detained in a cell at the San Diego border before being taken into custody by ICE. The agency then brought her to the Otay Mesa Detention Center where she’s now been for over a month.
She said she spent eight brutal days in solitary confinement in the facility.
“It was horrible. Like it’s really horrible,” she told Team 10 Investigative Reporter Austin Grabish, in a phone interview.
Lofving tried to get help from the German consulate in Los Angeles and said she felt hopeless as her friend sat in isolation without a blanket or pillow.
“She says it was like a horror movie. They were screaming in all different rooms. After nine days, she said she went so insane that she started punching the walls and then she's got blood on her knuckles,” Lofving said.
Staff at the private detention facility then brought in a psychologist, Lofving said.
“This psychologist tries to prescribe her anti-psychotic medicine. She refuses the medicine. “She says, ‘I don't want medicine. I just want to either get deported and go home, or just not be in a room alone because this is not cool.’”
Lofving, who lived in Berlin together with Brösche, has put up posters near the German consulate in Los Angeles that say FREE JESSY NOW!
Immigration attorney calls case unusual
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Antonio Baños Arauz said privacy concerns prevent the agency from discussing a specific case.
He explained if a foreign national is found inadmissible to the U.S. and doesn’t provide proof of residency in Mexico, CBP will give the person the opportunity to book travel back to his or her home country.
“If the foreign national is unable to do so, he or she will be turned over to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” Arauz said.
San Diego immigration attorney Tammy Lin said it was unusual that Brösche was detained.
“Typically, they'll ask the person, do you want to withdraw admission? They say, yes, then they will just release them on their way.”
She said this is the second German citizen she’s aware of who was denied entry at the San Diego-Mexico border recently.
“She had all her documents, everything like that. They didn't detain her, they let her go, and then she tried again, and they let her back in.”
ICE says tourist violated 'terms of admission'
Lin said she’s aware of other foreign nationals having issues coming into the U.S.
“I know that in the flurry of the first few weeks of the new presidency, a lot of people were getting turned away, that usually wouldn't. They had permission to come in or have been traveling back and forth without issue.”
Brösche has since been released from solitary confinement and said she’s in much better spirits but is desperate to get back to Europe.
“I don’t really understand why it’s taking so long to get back to Germany.”
ICE spokeswoman Sandra Grisolia said in a statement Friday evening Brösche's detention is related "to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission."
"All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States, regardless of nationality," she said.
The German consulate is aware of her case and is in close contact with U.S. authorities and Brösche’s family, said Danijel Skrelja, the Deputy Consul General in a statement.
