Not exactly. There have been cases where tourists were denied entry and faced extended detention but they were held in U.S. facilities before being returned to their home countries.
There have been cases of incoming immigrants sent to foreign prisons without charges or trial. In March 2025 the U.S. administration flew 238 Venezuelan migrants from Texas directly to the "Terrorism Confinement Center" in El Salvador. The group included asylum seekers with active court cases, individuals who had entered the U.S. legally, and recent border crossers. The administration labeled them members of the "Tren de Aragua" gang to justify the move.
Ages ago there was a Russian citizen they wanted who was flying to the Caribbean. His flight had a surprise landing in Florida with the FBI waiting on the tarmac.
You know, this wasn’t always the state of things. This is a choice we’ve made.
Frankly, temporary transit through a nation’s airspace (while onboard a commercial jet that you don’t control) shouldn’t subject you to their legal jurisdiction.
Shall we revoke the concept of diplomatic immunity next? Close the embassies?
We seem to be unlearning all the hard lessons of the past. It’s not going to end well.
Over the years a bunch of biathlon competitors have had various flavors of a bad time in NYC despite complying with the federal level stuff they're supposed to and that the state NY is supposed to honor. IDK if any of them have gone to actual jail for very long though.
Outside of embassies, the US wouldn't have a place to set up government facilities in someone else's country. Deportees are handed to the receiving country's authorities at most. ICE "camps" (detention facilities) are to process people prior to deporting. Once in another country, they're already deported.
You think a Mexican would see a foreign government institution outside of an embassy and not raise a stink about it? Especially one that may hold citizens captive by a foreign body in their own land? You can't hide something like that. You wouldn't be able to hide the transport either. You'd be able to find it as easily as Guantanamo pops up when you search "us camp in cuba". No such thing when you search "us camp in mexico".
No, I don't think so. There's a set of people who consume media that deliberately and consistently conflates "immigrant" and "illegal immigrant", and they just can't disambiguate what happens to one from what happens to the other.
But what to do with an "illegal immigrant" who has been living in the country for 30 years (and PAID TAXES!) , had 4 kids and a perfectly normal , productive life?
Do you separate them from their kids, and send the bunch to a prison? That is insane.
Because from what we hear about ICE, that is exactly what is happening... when they don't just kill them outright.
It might be enlightening for some to look at what happens to someone who builds a house on land they don't own, and then lives there for 30 years. It's a pretty well established body of law.
Except your analogy is asinine, and in this case it would be more like paying rent for 30 years in an apartment but not being on the lease so they unceremoniously kick you out.
You can't just make an unsubstantiated claim of "asinine". I'd say the comparison is quite apt. Failure to enforce a condition can amount to tacit agreement to it - the same thing can apply in contracts.
Also a tenant in your situation would most certainly have rights to not be "unceremoniously kicked out" - both a time period before they'd even be legally expected to leave, and also legal protections against being forcibly removed even if they didn't leave at that time.
I'm aware of stories of people who've had their flights unexpectedly grounded in New York (, New York) so they just abandoned their checked pistol and refused to collect it. I'd imagine something similar. If you never take possession, it becomes harder to charge and convict someone for possession.
But wouldn't they know whose bag it was anyway? And there's cameras everywhere so it wouldn't help if you e.g. removed the bag tags or discarded the contents somewhere else in the airport.
Same thing that happens whenever your flight gets diverted to South Korea and you have condoms, or Indonesia and you have legal weed, or to Australia and you have a pineapple.
Which is that it depends on the mood of the person in charge. Either you get to keep it, or it's confiscated and destroyed, or you go to jail, or you go to a firing squad.
We can guess which is more likely in each country. Indonesia almost always executes people found with drugs. Australia would probably just destroy your pineapple. India, being authoritarian but not completely insane, my guess is they'd take it and fine you.
Welcome to the world. If someone wants to shoot you, they can just do that. If that someone is a government, they won't suffer any consequences. There have been flights deliberately diverted by the country they were traveling over because they didn't like one of the people onboard, and that person was arrested by that country upon landing. I think the USA does this most frequently but it's also happened in CIS countries and Asian countries.
I was probably thinking of Romania a century ago. But you can imagine for every normal thing there is probably a country where it is banned. And South Korea is a country where some things are banned that you wouldn't expect.
When you're standing at the customs office entering a country, your lawyers are far far FAR away and the people talking to you won't care about them even a little bit.
Whatever will happen with you lawyering and fighting the border officers, will happen after you've been detained.
