United States authorities arrested a Canadian teenager and held her in custody in Tacoma for two weeks after she mistakenly jogged through a beach out of Canada and into the United States.
Nineteen year-old Cedella Roman, a student, had spent the day with her mother and sister at White Rock Beach in Canada on May 21, which is an official holiday in Canada in celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday, GlobalNews reported. She told her mom and sister she would see them again after she went for a jog.
Though a sign close to the railroad tracks warned of the border crossing, Roman saw no signs on the beach and said that it was an accident.
“An officer stopped me and started telling me I had crossed the border illegally,” Roman told CBC News.
“I told him I had not done it on purpose, and that I didn’t understand what was happening.”
Roman called her mother, Christiane Ferne, in tears, after she was arrested.
“The thing is that anybody can cross the border very quickly,” Ferne told Global News.
“It’s like a trap because if we don’t see a sign, you can cross the border very easily.”
However, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said her actions were still illegal.
“It is the responsibility of an individual travelling in the vicinity of an international border to maintain awareness of their surroundings and their location at all times to ensure they do not illegally cross the border,” the spokesperson said. (NAN)
