British family arrested, 3-month-old child left naked in frigid detention centre after accidentally crossing US-Canada border
A British family with a three-month-old baby has been arrested and is being held in a jail in the United States after they accidentally strayed across the border from Canada into American territory.
The family-of-seven which was visiting Canada reportedly took a wrong turn and was apprehended by US authorities and put in a prison meant for illegal immigrants.
David Connors, 30, and Eileen Connors, 24, said in a statement that their three-month-old has been subjected to filthy conditions in the Berks Detention Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania. The couple was detained along with David's brother Michael Connors, his wife Grace, and their two-year-old twin girls. The family is reportedly from London.
According to the family, they were visiting Vancouver on October 3 when Michael swerved the vehicle they were traveling in to avoid hitting an animal. The move landed them on a country road out of Canada and into America where US border police apprehended the entire family.
Their attorney, Bridget Cambria, of Aldea—The People's Justice Center, has reportedly filed a complaint on behalf of the family with the inspector general of the US Department of Homeland Security.
Eileen, in a statement to The Philadelphia Inquirer, said: "It was like an abduction or kidnapping. We will be traumatized for the rest of our lives by what the United States government has done to us." She added that Michael turned onto an unmarked road and multiple police cars and Border Patrol agents appeared there within moments.
Reports state that an officer told them: "You crossed an international border," and the two men were immediately arrested. The entire family was eventually taken into custody near the US-Vancouver border.
Their attorney, Cambria, on Monday, said: "They had no idea they had crossed any boundary. They had no idea they were even in the United States. They were just trying to get back to their hotel."
The officials initially told them that they would be released in the US. However, immigration officials told them there was a change in plans and they were put into a van and driven to the airport. The family was then flown to Pennsylvania and taken to the Berks Center, one of the three detention centers for migrant families in the US, on October 5.
Eileen, in the statement, said that the men were separated and kept in a different part of the center. Her three-month-old son was stripped naked and his clothes and blankets were taken for washing.
"When I ask how am I supposed to keep my baby warm in this horrible cold, all they tell me is to put a hat on him… They even took away one of his formula containers, which I had to beg for three days for them to return it to me," she wrote. She added that the sheets they were given "smelled like a dead dog."
"We have been treated like criminals here, stripped of our rights, and lied to. It is not right," Eileen added. "We have been traumatized. This would never happen in the United Kingdom to US citizens, or anyone else, because people there are treated with dignity."