They walked out of court in downtown Buffalo a little before 5 p.m., worn down from a hearing that had dragged late into the afternoon.
The man and woman climbed into their black S.U.V. With nightfall approaching and powerful wind gusts rolling in from Lake Erie, they began following the Google Maps instructions to get them home to Syracuse, N.Y.
They took an exit ramp and veered right, not focusing on where they were going. They didn’t notice the blue sign overhead, warning that they were “entering a federal inspection area.”
Within seconds, Victor and his sister Johanna realized their mistake. Victor — a Colombian asylum seeker who had spent the day in immigration court fighting to stay in the United States — was driving across the Peace Bridge toward the Canadian border. There was no way to turn back.
On the other side of the Niagara River, a patrol car pulled up alongside their S.U.V. as they approached the security plaza. Victor noticed the word “Canada” painted on its side.
It was Thursday, Feb. 6, barely two weeks into the second Trump administration, which by then was already deep into its promised immigration crackdown.
“We’re screwed,” Victor recalled telling Johanna as they pulled into Canadian customs. He had a feeling “something bad was coming. Something terrible.”
A Common Mistake
The Peace Bridge has connected Buffalo to Fort Erie, Ontario, since 1927. For decades, drivers who accidentally steered toward Canada could exit on the New York side and turn around. But a 2016 renovation eliminated that escape hatch, and now as many as 20 befuddled drivers end up across the border every day, a Canadian official said.
A video on YouTube is entitled, “Accidentally Crossing the U.S.-Canada Border on Peace Bridge!” A Reddit forum about Buffalo asks, “Anybody ever did this before?” The replies make clear that people have, with many saying they were deceived by their own GPS apps. (Google officials acknowledged that GPS technology can misplace the precise location of motorists and urged drivers to review their routes before getting on the road.)
“The penalty used to be it would cost you time and you had to pay the $4 toll,” said State Senator Sean Ryan, a Buffalo Democrat. But now, with President Trump pushing for more deportations and “enhanced vetting” at ports of entry, “it’s leading to people not being able to return home and to face immigration enforcement actions,” Mr. Ryan said.
It’s happening on other bridges, too. A Venezuelan immigrant was detained and then deported to El Salvador after mistakenly turning onto the Ambassador Bridge to Canada from Detroit. A few weeks later, 14 Ugandans on a religious pilgrimage accidentally crossed the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, N.Y. One had a panic attack and had to be hospitalized; three others were sent to immigration detention in Texas, where they remained for a month before paying a combined $25,000 in bonds to get out, said the driver of the van, Ronald Damulira.
When the Canadian authorities stopped Victor, he held out hope that they would let him go. It was only a wrong turn, after all.
Placed Behind Bars
Victor, 33, and his sister asked to be identified only by their first names for fear of retaliation because of their immigration situation. (Johanna is a refugee with legal U.S. status.)
Threatened with violence and even death in Colombia, Victor said, he fled to the United States two years ago and applied for asylum. By the time he went to court on Feb. 6 to argue his case, things were going well for him. He had a work permit and a Social Security number.
But the immigration court adjourned for the day before Victor could finish pleading his case. The judge gave him a date to come back, and he and Johanna climbed into the S.U.V. It took all of 15 minutes to leave downtown Buffalo and mistakenly get on the bridge to Fort Erie.
American border officials escorted Victor and his sister back to the U.S. side of the bridge, where, Victor said, federal agents seized their cellphones and told them to reveal the passwords or risk the destruction of their devices.
Victor and Johanna turned over their legal documents and were put in a holding cell. It had metal chairs, two small windows and a door that locked from the outside. Victor said immigration officials made it clear that the rules had changed, that there was “a new president” now, and “there was nothing from the previous president that existed anymore.”
Soon, more immigrants entered the cell, including two men from Venezuela who arrived under similar circumstances: They had been trying to get to Costco, but followed GPS directions over the bridge, Victor said.
Immigration officials came in to interrogate the Venezuelan men and made them remove their shirts, which revealed various tattoos. Victor said the officials accused the men of belonging to the infamous Tren de Aragua gang; the Venezuelans protested, saying their tattoos showed roses and names of children, not gang affiliations.
Victor said the immigration officer moved the men to another cell. He said he never saw them again.
At about 4 a.m., Victor said, he and his sister were taken to a cell with cots. They tried to sleep, but his fear of being deported overwhelmed him. Victor told authorities that he suffered from depression and needed his medication.
By the next night, Victor and Johanna had been separated. Victor was taken to a hospital in Buffalo and chained to a bed. Johanna was released and given the car keys.
She said she started the car and ran the heat to stay warm, as the temperature dropped to the low 20s. But she didn’t know how to drive, so there she sat, even as officers kept motioning her to leave.
“All I could do was cry,” Johanna said. She finally connected with friends who sent someone to get her.
The next day, Johanna, 31, learned that Victor had been transferred from the hospital to an immigration detention center in Batavia, N.Y., between Buffalo and Rochester. She went to visit him there.
He was seated behind a thick wall of glass and dressed in blue, a color reserved for low-risk detainees. They talked over a scratchy telephone line, trying to comprehend what had happened.
He told his sister he regretted ever getting behind the wheel in Buffalo, where he’d never driven. She tried to reassure him, explaining that his lawyers were “doing everything they can to get you out of here.”
‘ICE Will Maintain His Custody’
Victor’s lawyers at the Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY asked the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to let him go, citing his ongoing asylum case. ICE rejected the request on Feb. 10, saying that it was no longer abiding by a decision roughly two years ago to release him pending the outcome of his case.
“U.S. C.B.P. decided to redetermine his custody when he was most recently encountered, and as such, ICE will maintain his custody,” the agency told one of Victor’s pro bono lawyers, Siana McLean, in an email, referring to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The court scheduled a bond hearing for Victor on Feb. 28. But then another threat arose: The authorities in Batavia told him that he would be transferred to Texas or Arizona.
For some reason, it didn’t happen. Other detainees were awakened in the middle of the night and sent away, but Victor remained in Batavia until his hearing.
That day, Victor was taken to a courtroom inside the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia. His lawyers and family presented more than two dozen letters from supporters Victor knew from church, English class and his work as a handyman in Syracuse. All vouched for his character and work ethic.
One person recounted how Victor slept with headphones at night “so that he can listen to English in his sleep.” Another noted that he volunteered at a local food bank and had “a particular heart for older people because of the close relationship with his grandmother.” Another noted he once owned a restaurant in Colombia and cooked daily breakfasts for his family.
An employer described Victor as “the type of individual we should be welcoming.”
“Victor has no criminal record. Victor is a God-fearing man, who loves and supports a family-first mentality,” he said. “Victor desires to be here legally and would never consider running and hiding.”
Citing in part the outpouring of support, the judge released Victor on a $5,000 bond.
“I let out a very hard scream: ‘I’m free!’” Victor said.
He can now smile about the whole episode, and even about the wrong turn. He said others he met in Batavia had also found themselves locked up “por el GPS.”
“We looked at each other and said it was because of stupidity, something silly,” he said. “We were prisoners because of a very small thing, but the same thing happened to all of us at the bridge.”
Jay Root is an investigative reporter based in Albany, N.Y., covering the people and events influencing — and influenced by — state and local government.
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