A German tourist is fighting to be released from an immigration detention center after she was denied entry at the San Diego border and taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) last month.
Jessica Brösche, a 26-year-old German tattoo artist, is being indefinitely detained by US Customs and Border Protection after she tried to enter San Diego on 25 January from Tijuana, Mexico, with her American best friend, Amelia Lofving. The two were traveling with tattoo equipment.
“I just want to get home, you know? I’m really desperate,” Brösche told ABC News 10News in a phone interview from a detention facility.
Lofving, a designer, had just moved to Los Angeles when she met up with Brösche in Tijuana with plans to cross the border together and travel to Los Angeles, but Brösche never made it to the city.
Brösche had her German passport, confirmation of her visa waiver to enter the country, and a copy of her return ticket back to Berlin, Lofving said. But she was still pulled aside for a secondary inspection by a US Customs and Border Protection agent.