Midway through ‘a trip of a lifetime,’ a young British woman finds herself in ICE detention in Tacoma. Why?

Rebecca Burke is a 28-year-old graphic artist from London. A recent visit she made to the United States started, she said, as a trip of a lifetime, then turned into a nightmare. Burke was detained at ICE's Tacoma facility for nearly three weeks, reportedly for having the wrong visa paperwork.

Journalist Jenny Kleeman wrote about what happened for The Guardian newspaper. She spoke to KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about it.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: You are a journalist by trade, but you happen to know Rebecca personally. She's Becky to you, a neighbor, someone who's taken care of your kids. How would you describe her? What's she like?

Jenny Kleeman: She is an extremely caring, very fun person. And the first thing I would say, if I was describing her, is she's an extraordinary artist. She is unstoppably creative. For two and a half years, she looked after my kids and she drew with them. We felt so lucky to have someone as talented and fun and caring as her as part of our family.

She was also adventurous. She wanted to travel across North America, and she figured out a way to do it at a lower cost. Can you tell us a little bit about why she took the trip?

She really loved the Pacific Northwest. She loved the nature, the redwood trees, and all of the beautiful scenery that you've got. She went on a trip where she stayed in San Francisco a couple of years ago on this Workaway scheme. It's a scheme where you walk the dog, or you do a bit of gardening in people's homes, and in return, they give you a bed to sleep in. She got the travel bug from doing this trip.

Then last summer, she did a similar trip in Europe. And she told me in September that her plan was to stop doing child care for us and return to North America and also go to Canada, drawing as she went, being a cartoonist, but also getting to see the beautiful scenery and the excellent cities that you've got there. She loved being in Portland, and she visited Seattle, too.

Becky was headed for Canada, and then things went sideways from there. What happened when she tried to cross the border?

When she reached the Canadian side of the border, the officials there told her that her living arrangements meant she would require a work visa, not a tourist visa. So, they returned her to the American side of the border, and that's when things got really frightening for her. She was made to wait for six hours. She was then handcuffed, had her phone taken away, and she was placed into a cell.

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What happened to her next? I'm sure she was trying to say, look, I have the wrong visa, but I didn't do anything wrong.

Not only did she say that, she also said, I'm really sorry if I've made a mistake. I have the money to go home. I'll go home right now. But they weren't having any of it. The border officials told her she was an illegal alien and that she needed to be detained pending her deportation. So, she was put into the back of a van, shackled, and was driven in the dark through the night for three hours, and then she was taken to a detention center.

I understand she was told she would only stay for a couple of days. What ended up happening?

She ended up spending a total of 19 days in the detention center in Tacoma.

How did she finally manage to be released?

She only got released after her story made headline news in the UK, in Europe, and across the US. Part of that was through me getting the news out, but it was also through her father, who put an appeal on Facebook that went viral. He ended up being all over the news here, appealing for her to be released.

She finally got the word that she was going to be released when they took her to the airport. You write that she had a full body search before she was put on the plane, and that she cried silently through it all. You knew her from before. Can you tell yet how this experience may have changed her?

She was definitely paler, with much more hollow eyes than the person my family loved and knew so well. Her eyes have been opened by what she saw in that detention center, but I think she has learned that she has great resources of strength, that she's been able to live through this, and she's incredibly grateful and aware of the privilege that she has, that she was able to be released from there because she was in touch with journalists, and she feels very guilty for all the women left in her dorm who are still there.

This story took up a lot of headlines in the UK. How is it landing with people there?

In the UK, people are just appalled that this could happen, that a tourist who makes a mistake could be detained for 19 days. It's caused the UK Foreign Office to change their travel advice. That's happened also in various European countries, including Germany, where many other people have been detained. It seems that you can't assume that, if you're honest and you make a mistake in good faith, that border officials will treat you with dignity; that you can have your liberty removed in a kind of arbitrary way if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong visa.

An ICE spokesperson told KUOW Rebecca was detained for violating the terms of her admission to the US. A US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told us individuals who travel to the US under the Visa Waiver Program are not allowed to work for any type of compensation, including room and board. They would not say why Rebecca Burke was held for 19 days and subjected to a full body search before being deported.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.