New Zealander Sarah Shaw and her 6-year-old son thought they were being kidnapped when they were bundled into a white van with no markings at the Canadian border.<\/p>\n
They were detained three weeks ago, when Shaw and her son Isaac tried to re-enter the United States after dropping her two other children off for a flight in Vancouver on 24 July. She is now being held at an immigration processing centre in Texas.<\/p>\n
Shaw’s friend Victoria Besancon told RNZ she thought she had everything in order.<\/p>\n
When she finally spoke to Shaw – days after she was first detained – she still was not sure what was happening to her.<\/p>\n
“I remember her on the phone being absolutely panicked. She originally thought she was being kidnapped, she didn’t even realise she was being detained originally.”<\/p>\n
Her son had all his valid paperwork on him, she said, which meant he was being held illegally.<\/p>\n
“They were put into a giant white van, there was no markers on it, and not a lot was explained to them, so she was absolutely terrified.”<\/p>\n
Besancon said she spoke with Shaw almost daily, and had been given the power of legal attorney, as communication was difficult from within the detainment centre.<\/p>\n
“We believe that’s a part of why Sarah was detained in Texas,” she said. “We are noticing this tactic more and more by ICE in the United States right now.”<\/p>\n
The conditions were “very similar to a prison,” Besancon said.<\/p>\n
“She is in a locked room with five bunk beds, she’s allowed to walk around the facility from 8am to 8pm, but outside of that she is locked in a cell with other families.”<\/p>\n
They were among the only English-speakers at the facility.<\/p>\n
Newsweek\u00a0<\/i>has reported Shaw was waiting for a green card and was arrested despite having some immigration documents.<\/p>\n
Do you know more? Send us an email:\u00a0<\/i><\/b>news@rnz.co.nz<\/p>\n
The Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) said Shaw and her son were being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Centre in Dilley, Texas.<\/p>\n
WFSE said Shaw worked as a juvenile rehabilitation employee at the Echo Glen Children’s Centre in Snoqualmie – run by the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families.<\/p>\n
The union was calling for their immediate release.<\/p>\n
“The trauma this has already caused for her and her son may never be healed,” WFSE president Mike Yestramski, a psychiatric social worker at Western State Hospital, said.<\/p>\n
“But our union stands ready to help and support them in any way possible. An injury to one is an injury to all.”<\/p>\n
A fundraising webpage was set up by Besancon to get Shaw and her son back to Washington.<\/p>\n
Besancon said Shaw had a “limited ability to communicate”.<\/p>\n
“She is relying on us to get her story out.”<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was aware of the reports of Shaw and her son’s detention, and was seeking further information.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Winston Peters said there were “scant details”.<\/p>\n
“Foreign Affairs and Consular Affairs are on to it now… I can’t tell you any more than that,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to find out what the details are, we haven’t got those details yet.”<\/p>\n
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New Zealander Sarah Shaw and her 6-year-old son thought they were being kidnapped when they were bundled into a white van with no markings at the Canadian border. They were detained three weeks ago, when Shaw and her son Isaac tried to re-enter the United States after dropping her two other children off for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14652,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14650\/revisions\/14652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}