Karen Newton just wanted some sun. After eight years without a holiday abroad, the 65-year-old grandmother from Hertfordshire packed her bags in July 2025 for a two-month road trip across America with her husband Bill. She had a valid British passport, a valid tourist visa, and no criminal record—not even a parking ticket, as she later put it. None of it mattered.

What followed was 42 days of shackles, a concrete floor, confiscated belongings, and no meaningful help from British authorities. Newton came home to dead houseplants, a damaged credit score, unpaid bills, and a suitcase she will never see again. Speaking publicly for the first time, she has aclear messagefor anyone considering a trip to the US: 'Don't go—not with Trump in charge.'

The trip itself was everything Newton had hoped for. Yellowstone moved her—a bison beside the car, a wolf passing at close range. It was at the US-Canada border in late September that everything fell apart. Canadian officials turned the couple back over a paperwork issue with their hire car. When they crossed back to the American side, border agents flagged that Bill's US visa had expired. Karen's had not.

She expected a brief delay, perhaps an escort to an airport. Instead, both were made to wait in a border office from mid-morning until dark before agents arrived with chains. The couple were shackled at the wrists, waist, and ankles, driven through the night to a Montana border station, and held there for three days on floor mats under foil blankets. When Newton asked why she specifically was being detained, she was told only that a supervisor had ordered it.

The Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, operated by a private contractor, houses detainees awaiting immigration proceedings.Rep. Jayapal said she waited for hours and ultimately went on a tour, but received “very few answers.”https://t.co/WkRLzjSbYR

The couple were transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, where Newton was separated from Bill and taken to the women's unit. When she said she could not climb to a top bunk, she was offered the floor. That is where she slept for a month — on a thin mattress, in a windowless room where the lights never went out. On one occasion she woke, made herself tea, and assumed it was morning. The clock read 2330. She had been asleep for three hours.

She did not call her son Scott for weeks. 'It was humiliating,' she said. 'I was ashamed to be locked up.' The British consulate, when she eventually reached someone, said it could not interfere and never followed up. Weekly ICE updates offered the same two words: 'two weeks.' On 6 November, without warning, a guard opened her cell door. She was going home — still shackled for the drive to Seattle-Tacoma airport.

Newton's story lands at a moment of particular tension for international travel to the US. The2026 FIFA World Cupkicks off on 11 June, with 78 matches spread across 11 American host cities through to the final on 19 July in New Jersey. Tourism Economics projects the tournament will bring approximately1.2 million international visitorsto the US — fans from football-mad nations across Europe, South America, and beyond, many of whom will be navigating American borders for the first time under the current administration.

Newton does not think they fully understand what they could be walking into. 'I worry about young people going out there for the World Cup — I really do,' she said. 'I imagine a group of young guys getting drunk at a game, getting arrested. I could see them easily ending up in the same place as I did.' Her concern is not abstract. The American Immigration Council reported that ICE detention numbers rose by nearly75% in 2025, reaching record levels, driven largely by arrests of people with no criminal record. Newton is direct about the motive. 'I think it's Trump insisting they generate figures,' she said. 'ICE just do it because they can.'

Well worth reading: ⬇️➡️ ‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks- Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the…pic.twitter.com/kx4ikSmZWZ

Source: International Business Times UK