How a German Tourist Became a Victim of His System

Welcome to Donald Trump’s America, where even a harmless European woman who simply wants to go home is suddenly declared a threat. Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tattoo artist from Berlin, was arrested on January 25 at the border between Mexico and the United States. Her alleged crime? A tourist visa, a tattoo kit, and the suspicion that she might have worked in the United States. What followed was a weeks-long nightmare that exposes the full arbitrariness of American migration policy under Trump.

Brösche wanted to travel from Tijuana to San Diego together with her friend Nikita Lofving, a fashion designer living in Los Angeles. While Lofving entered without any issues using her U.S. passport, Brösche was pulled aside by border agents. Why? Because she had tattoo equipment with her. In Trump’s America, that alone is enough to be labeled an illegal worker and arrested.

One night in custody? No, weeks in hell - What followed was something Brösche could not have imagined even in her worst nightmares: she disappeared into the American detention system, where she was placed in solitary confinement for more than a week. No judge, no hearing, no answers. She spent eight days alone in a cell, without a blanket, without a pillow, surrounded by screams from other rooms. Lofving, who desperately tried to find her friend, later reported that Brösche became so distraught that she began hitting the walls until her knuckles bled.

Brösche was eventually transferred to the notorious Otay Mesa Detention Center, a privately operated facility known for its brutal conditions. According to Brösche, staff there attempted to calm her with sedatives. But instead of being subdued with medication, she kept fighting for her release. For weeks, she received no clear information about her status. Her crime? None, except being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As Brösche and her supporters tried to pressure the authorities, the private company operating the prison resisted every criticism. CoreCivic, which receives billions from the Trump administration to run such detention centers, claimed that there was no solitary confinement. But reports from detainees and human rights organizations paint a different picture: psychological terror, inhumane conditions, and weeks of detention without a hearing are routine here. The German government? Silence in the face of inhumanity. A very weak showing from politicians of all stripes.

The German Consulate General in Los Angeles tried to help Brösche, but once again it became clear how powerless diplomacy is against a system that treats human rights as secondary. For weeks, officials said they were working on a “timely solution” while a young woman waited in prison for her deportation flight. Donald Trump’s immigration policy does not target only migrants from Latin America or Muslim-majority countries - it affects all of us. The arrest of Jessica Brösche is a prime example of how quickly anyone can become a target in Trump’s America. It takes only the wrong visa, a misunderstanding, or a border agent in a bad mood, and a tourist becomes a detainee.

Lofving summed it up when she wrote on social media, “The world should know that it is not safe to travel here. If America loses tourism money, maybe they will calm down on deportations. The only way these people will understand is to hit their wallets.” And this is exactly the problem: Trump’s America is not acting rationally but according to the motto “crack down hard, no matter on whom.” The rule of law that the United States once prided itself on has long given way to a brutal, unpredictable system. After weeks of detention, it was finally announced that Jessica Brösche is to be deported to Germany on March 11. Her friend Lofving wrote with relief, “Fingers crossed it actually happens.” But the question remains: why did an innocent woman have to spend a month of her life in a U.S. prison? Why was she treated like a criminal simply because she had a tattoo kit with her? And above all, what comes next. We suspect that we will have to prepare for battles with ICE and that the violence will grow. Trump wants to change the system, and he will try to do so with decree after decree. He has bigger plans, and it appears that he wants control not only over people but over entire cities. From internal sources we learned that Trump is considering “misusing” the National Guard for these purposes. We will see. Trump may be an American problem, but his policies concern all of us.