Horrors of Trump detention centre: Lisburn man tells his story after arrest for 'looking like a Mexican'
— Belfast Telegraph (@BelTel) September 10, 2025
Lee Stinton was lifted by US immigration police on an American street — in an incident he compared to a kidnapping.
Here, he tells us his story. pic.twitter.com/VmZofOcgro
Horrors of Trump detention centre: Lisburn man tells his story after arrest for ‘looking like a Mexican’ Lee Stinton was lifted by US immigration police on an American street — in an incident he compared to a kidnapping. Here, he tells us his story.
Watch that interview if you have the chance.
Despite believing he had a legal right to stay in the US due to personal circumstances, Lee Stinton’s life was turned upside down when he was arrested by an ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) officer.
Lee (45) had been a successful Key West hairdresser with a partner, DeVaun Davis, whom he had planned to marry in August.
For a month, he was kept in a cramped cell in the notorious Krome Detention Centre, which has been criticised for providing inadequate and little food, overcrowded cells and denial of medication for detainees.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph from his parents’ home in Lisburn, he sits where he can see the door — his escape route, a safety net after what he alleges happened at Krome.
“I had been making my own money, paying my taxes, I had my own apartment. It is all going well. I had my new partner, a great job.”
“I was on my way to work one day. An ICE officer said to me: ‘You look Mexican.’ I said: ‘I am not. I am from Northern Ireland.’
“They asked me if I had my paperwork with me. I don’t know who carried that stuff around with them anyway; I would want to keep it somewhere safe.
“It was like I was kidnapped off of the street. I managed to get through to my partner on the phone while they were shackling me in the streets.
“They were trying to say I ran a stop sign. I was on a bike — there was no stop sign. I had stopped to let a car go by me. But they needed some form of probable cause.
“The man who was arresting me looked at my phone. My screensaver is a picture of my partner and me. He said: ‘He looks Haitian. This might be a two-for-one deal today.’
“They brought me to the Krome Detention Centre in Miami.”
[…]
“I never even had so much as a parking ticket. I have no criminal record. I have never done anything wrong. I was doing everything the US Government asked me,” says Lee.
“Then I suddenly find myself in a cell with all of these people. I was housed in this concrete cell with these really bright lights. It was meant to be for about 10 people and there were over 100 men in the cell. There was one toilet.
“There were nights where everyone was lying on the ground. On the concrete, it was freezing cold. I had to sleep right by the toilet some nights because there was no where for me to sleep.
“I have been vegan for a long time. They wouldn’t get me food. If they did, it was always meat. When you talked to someone about the type of dietary requirements you had, you just didn’t get [anything].
“They didn’t bother bringing me food. I lost a lot of weight. I was very malnourished.
“You didn’t shower for about two weeks. I couldn’t brush my teeth or anything.
“It was so hard to get anything. To even get toothpaste, things for basic human needs like a shower, everything was a struggle.
“They brought you outside once a day for an hour. You’d walk around in circles to get a bit of exercise.
“This man had been begging for days for his heart medication. He literally dropped dead of a heart attack in front of my eyes. They didn’t give him the medication he needed.
“That was someone’s father, someone’s grandfather, and he just dropped dead. I never saw anything like that before.”
[…]
“I can barely deal with this as an adult. And the things they did to me were horrible. I asked one of the ladies about food. I had not eaten for three days. She just started screaming in my face: ‘Bye! Bye! Bye!’
“They weren’t supposed to mix the oranges and blues, but they had mixed everyone together.
“You were given phone calls. My partner had to put [up] a lot of money for me to be able to call them. They listen to every phone call.”
[…]
“[ICE] were meant to involve the British Consulate; they didn’t do that. It was actually my parents who got the British Consulate involved,” he explains.
“They would hold you in the holding cell for three or four hours. I only saw the consulate for 10 minutes. They put me back in a holding cell for hours, again with no food.
“Then they brought me back to the camp with everyone else. It almost felt like, for me, if you were getting any kind of help you were punished.
“When my lawyer came, they kept me in a holding cell for four hours. I could see my lawyer — there are glass doors — and she could see me very clearly. But for those four hours, [ICE] were telling me they couldn’t contact my lawyer…
“It was just non-stop trying to get food. My parents would call up the British Consulate, which would then call on my behalf to get me food. They were getting to the stage where they had to call every day.”
“An officer had been taking me to this room and he said: ‘You aren’t allowed to have those.’ He pointed at my piercings,” he recalls.
“Next thing I knew I was being shackled again. Chains around my ankles, my wrists. They brought me to a hospital in Miami.
“They made me stand with all of these people looking at me like I was some sort of murderer. It was so degrading. They brought me into a room. They told the doctors to cut out all of my piercings.
“I had already been there for almost a month. I didn’t understand why this was suddenly an issue. I just feel like everything was done to intimidate and torture.
“I told the nurses specifically: ‘I do not consent to this.’ But they put lidocaine [for numbing] on my face and on the back of my neck. The thing is it is only supposed to work for 40 minutes; I was lying there for well over an hour and they just started doing it. I was shackled to the bed. I couldn’t move.
“The guards who brought me there were laughing at me. They were just like: ‘Oh, that’s gnarly.’ I kept saying: ‘I can feel this. It hurts.’”
[…]
“[ICE] said: ‘You, you’re gone.’ They made you pack up everything you had, which was basically a few blankets,” he says.
“They held me in another holding cell for 13, 14 hours.
“They brought us to the airport, where they kept me in a little room.
“I went to the airport at 5am; my flight wasn’t until 7pm.
“They put me in this tiny room. They allow you to put your own clothes on. It was freezing cold in that place and all I had was shorts, a tank top and Birkenstocks.
“They send you to what is considered the capital of your country. They just dropped me off in London. They don’t give you any plan on getting you back home. They just left me in the middle of the big city.”
This is what we’re doing.