Kidnapped by ICE: Canada Wants Answers Around 55 of It's Citizens Kidnapped By The Trump Regime

Shocking cases of Canadians kidnapped, detained, a death in custody, and why U.S. actions may be "Crimes Against Humanity"

Dozens of Canadians have been swept up in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids. 55, to be exact, and Canada is livid.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand revealed that “approximately 55 Canadians have been detained” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These detentions range from long-time U.S. residents to tourists and even a Canadian actor on a valid work visa. For Canada – America’s close ally – the ordeal has felt like a surreal nightmare, with innocent citizens effectively kidnapped in a foreign country.

Death in Detention: The Johnny Noviello Case

The crisis escalated from abusive detentions to tragedy on June 23, 2025, when Johnny Noviello, a 49-year-old Canadian citizen, died in ICE custody. Noviello’s story underscores how draconian policies turned lethal. He had lived in the U.S. since 1988, becoming a lawful permanent resident (green card holder) a few years later. In 2023, Noviello was convicted in Florida on drug-related charges and served a 12-month sentence. By May 2025, he had completed his probationary period and was rebuilding his life. But under Trump’s renewed crackdown, ICE agents arrested Noviello at a probation office on May 15 and locked him in a detention center, intending to deport him for the old conviction.

For five weeks, Noviello languished in ICE custody awaiting removal to Canada. Then came the awful news: he was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead on June 23. According to ICE, staff tried CPR and a defibrillator and called 911, but it was too late. The cause of death remains under investigation, and Canadian officials say they are urgently seeking answers. Ottawa only learned of Noviello’s death after the fact, prompting Minister Anand to demand information on what happened. ICE noted that he was “pending removal proceedings” at the time and perfunctorily stated that at no time was any “detained illegal alien denied emergent care”. Noviello became the ninth detainee to die in ICE custody this year (and the fourth in Florida alone), reflecting a disturbing pattern of fatalities.

Canadian officials are treating Noviello’s death as a potential human rights abuse. The Foreign Ministry’s statement emphasized that consular officials had been in contact with him throughout his detention and are now pressing U.S. authorities for the truth. For Canadians, the tragedy crystallized the dangers their citizens face in ICE facilities, even those who are legal residents with longstanding ties to America.

“Not the Actions of a Democratic Nation”: Canada Demands Answers

After we learned of Johnny Noviello’s death, news broke that the Trump Regime is currently detaining 55 other Canadians, and it has set off a diplomatic firestorm between Ottawa and Washington. In late March, Canada took the extraordinary step of updating its official travel advisory for the U.S., citing the wave of immigration enforcement. The advisory cautions Canadians that they “might be detained if denied entry” and to “expect scrutiny at ports of entry, including of electronic devices,” a stark alert virtually unheard of in modern Canada-U.S. relations.

Canadian officials say the move was necessary after seeing friendly visits turn into ordeals. “We have seen too many stories of citizens being pulled out of airport lines, fingerprinted, and deported as if they were criminals. Citizens being kidnapped to illegal detention by ICE… this is not the actions of a democratic nation,” fumed Charlie Angus, a veteran Member of Parliament, while urging Canadians to avoid non-essential U.S. travel. Angus’s blunt words – “ICE [is] kidnapping our citizens” – reflect a rapidly souring public mood. Indeed, a Leger poll in May found 52% of Canadians feel “it is no longer safe for all Canadians travelling to the United States,” and many now feel unwelcome in the U.S.. This is a stunning sentiment in a country that shares a peaceful, open border stretching 9,000 kilometers with the U.S.

After Johnny Noviello’s death, Foreign Minister Anand announced that Canada was “urgently seeking more information” and pressed ICE for answers.

Behind diplomatic doors, Canadian officials are reportedly livid. They note that Noviello’s case isn’t an isolated incident of mistreatment – it’s part of a pattern. Each new story of a Canadian inexplicably detained – whether it’s a student jailed for weeks over a paperwork glitch or a traveler turned away due to an overzealous border agent empowered to commit human rights abuses in the name of Trump - doesn’t make us want to come back.

In response to Ottawa’s outcry, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra attempted damage control. He pushed back on Canada’s advisory, insisting that any border hassles are “isolated events” and “not a pattern”. Hoekstra claimed fears of phone searches and arbitrary detentions were “not well-founded”, saying, “We don’t do that. America is a ‘welcoming place’. LOL. Canadian travelers would beg to differ. If anything, Hoekstra’s remarks – essentially telling Canadians their concerns are imaginary – only added fuel to the fire.

The Canadian Government, along with European allies, remains unconvinced. Several European nations have updated their U.S. travel advisories in response to Trump’s policies. They specifically warn travelers who are transgender, nonbinary, or from minority groups to exercise caution, given reports that U.S. authorities are targeting certain nationalities and demographics. For Canada, the advisory and public warnings are a sharp rebuke to Washington: a signal that America under Trump can no longer be assumed a safe destination.

Legal Showdown: Habeas Corpus and International Law

Beyond the political rift, the detentions raise serious legal and constitutional questions. Under U.S. law, foreign nationals generally can be detained and removed if they violate visa terms or commit certain crimes – but they are still entitled to basic due process. Many of these Canadians have not been convicted of any new crime; some, like Jasmine Mooney, had valid visas or permits. Detaining them without timely hearings, access to counsel, or clear justification could violate their habeas corpus rights and the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment due process clause. Typically, an individual in ICE custody can file a writ of habeas corpus to challenge unlawful detention. But with expedited deportation orders and opaque national-security justifications, the avenues for relief are murky. Families of detained Canadians describe a Kafkaesque maze: loved ones transferred to far-flung ICE facilities, limited communication, and inability to even know which court to petition.

Trump officials have dusted off obscure, antiquated statutes to justify mass deportations, skirting standard legal procedure. In one instance, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – a law meant for wartime espionage threats – to summarily expel hundreds of Venezuelan asylum-seekers deemed “security risks. A federal judge had to step in to block these removals, calling the use of the war-era law unlawful. In another case, the administration tried to deport a U.S. green card holder from Columbia University under a 1952 McCarran Act provision on supporting subversive groups; the student, Mahmoud Khalil, was accused (without evidence) of sympathizing with Hamas. Khalil’s lawyers argue his detention is a gross abuse of a Cold War law intended to target spies, not silence political dissent.

The Trump administration is pushing the limits of executive power and shredding due process safeguards in the name of immigration enforcement, which is a “Trojan Horse” excuse. The Trump Regime wants to normalize kidnapping as a strategy. David Leopold, a prominent immigration attorney, notes that Trump’s tactics are “unilateral, factual determinations made by the executive” with scant judicial or legislative oversight. In plain terms, ICE agents and officials, directed by the White House, are acting as judge, jury, and jailer – often in secret. This raises alarms about violations of international law as well. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the U.S. is a party, forbids arbitrary detention and guarantees anyone deprived of liberty the right to challenge the detention before a court. By holding foreign nationals (even tourists and students) for weeks on end without a clear legal process, the U.S. is breaching these obligations and almost certainly committing Crimes Against Humanity.

Canada is weighing international legal avenues. This could include filing complaints at the United Nations, the International Criminal Courts, or the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Canadian diplomats quietly warn that if one of their citizens is further harmed or – heaven forbid – “disappeared” into some black-hole detention, Canada would invoke every legal mechanism available to secure their release and hold the U.S. accountable. The notion of Canada accusing Washington of breaching international human rights law would have been absurd a few years ago. Today, it seems entirely plausible, some say probable, and the Canadian Government is considering leading that charge, with discussions underway with several countries considering the same thing.

Are These Crimes Against Humanity?

With accounts of abuse, negligence, and possibly even deliberate cruelty emerging, many are asking if the Trump administration’s treatment of detainees crosses the line into crimes against humanity. The answer is “probably”. Much like the liberation of concentration camps in 1945, the world won’t know the full extent of the abuses until these detention centers like “Aligator Alcatraz” in Florida are liberated from existence. It’s a grave charge – one typically reserved for the worst offenses like systematic torture, enslavement, or ethnic cleansing. But human rights experts say the label is not as far-fetched as it sounds in this context. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) defines crimes against humanity as certain acts (including unlawful imprisonment, torture, persecution, and “other inhumane acts”) committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. Is Trump’s immigration crackdown “widespread” and “systematic”? By all appearances, yes. Consider that ICE was explicitly ordered to triple its arrest rates to 3,000 per day, a quota-driven campaign to round up as many immigrants as possible. Consider further that this dragnet spans the entire country, targeting not just those with criminal records but “unauthorized” people en masse – including students, tourists, asylum seekers, long-term residents, and even children. This amounts to a systematic attack on the civilian population of foreign nationals in the U.S., carried out under the color of law.

The cruelty of the methods bolsters the case. Detainees have been subjected to treatment that exceeds the threshold of “inhumane acts”: Families separated; asylum seekers forcibly deported to dangerous third countries without a hearing; individuals kept in solitary confinement for prolonged periods; medical neglect leading to deaths; the beating, and kidnapping of thousands without a warrent or reason other then the fac that they look to be “un-American.” The case of the 238 Venezuelans is especially chilling – U.S. authorities effectively “forcibly disappeared” them by secretly transferring them to a prison in El Salvador (the notorious CECOT facility) known for “cruel, inhuman or degrading” conditions. This extrajudicial rendition was done under a flimsy wartime pretext, and decisions reportedly relied on discriminatory criteria like tattoos and socio-economic status. Human Rights Watch condemned the operation, and legal scholars pointed out that enforced disappearances and deportation without due process are textbook human rights violations, potentially rising to the level of crimes against humanity when done at scale.

In the case of the Canadians, what we see is part of this larger pattern. These 55 individuals were not targeted for any crimes they committed (beyond, perhaps, minor visa issues or past infractions they already paid for). They appear to have been swept up simply because Trump’s enforcers had a quota to fill and a mandate to be indiscriminate. It’s hard not to view the detention of Canadian (and European) travelers – people from friendly, affluent nations – as a deliberate message by Trump’s inner circle. It signals that no one is off-limits. If you’re not American, you’re fair game under the new regime, whether you’re a Mexican asylum seeker or a Canadian retiree driving south for the winter. Such an indiscriminate campaign against civilians based on national origin could qualify as “persecution”, another crime against humanity, especially when accompanied by the denial of fundamental rights.

International law scholars also point to the systematic cover-up and evasion of accountability as aggravating factors. The Trump administration has taken brazen steps to shield itself from scrutiny, including withdrawing the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council and imposing sanctions on ICC officials to ward off any war crimes investigations. In February, Trump signed an executive order authorizing sanctions on ICC personnel (and anyone assisting the ICC), after the court dared to investigate potential “crimes under international law” by U.S. allies and officials. U.N. experts blasted this move as “an attack on the global rule of law” intended to undermine international justice. The timing was no coincidence: it came as the ICC issued arrest warrants for figures like Vladimir Putin and also eyed allegations of human rights abuses by the U.S. border regime. By choking off cooperation with the ICC, Trump signaled that his administration intends to operate with impunity on the world stage – a stance that only emboldens further abuses.

None of this is to say an ICC prosecution of U.S. officials is imminent; the geopolitics are daunting, and the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute. But the very fact that respected jurists and watchdog groups are discussing “crimes against humanity” in the context of U.S. immigration policy is sobering.

Renowned international law professor Michael Byers summed it up: “If we saw another country rounding up people by the thousands, holding them incommunicado in undisclosed locations, with deaths in custody and evidence of brutality – we would condemn it as crimes against humanity. We must apply the same standard here.” Canadian human rights advocate Lloyd Axworthy (a former foreign minister) echoed that sentiment, warning that the mass detentions and mistreatment “bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes” and calling on the global community not to look away. In short, while the terminology may still be debated, the moral verdict is increasingly clear: the Trump administration is perpetrating grave human rights abuses that may well constitute crimes against humanity.

Allies No More: Fallout and the Future of North America

The implications of this crisis extend far beyond individual cases. The Canada-U.S. relationship – one of the closest alliances in the world – is under severe strain. Trust, the invisible glue of international partnerships, is eroding rapidly. Canadian officials now openly question whether the U.S. under Trump respects Canada’s sovereignty and values Canadian lives. If Canadian citizens can be snatched up and detained without due process, what does that say about U.S. respect for the rule of law? What assurances does Canada have that this won’t keep happening?

Economically and socially, the fallout is already tangible. Travel between Canada and the U.S. has plummeted. Major airlines report a sharp drop in bookings; one travel industry group noted a “nearly 40% drop” in flights between the two countries compared to the same period a year earlier. The iconic flow of Canadian “snowbirds” – retirees who flock to Florida and Arizona each winter – has slowed to a trickle as over a million Canadians reconsider long-term visits under the new registration rules and general unease.

(Trump’s new rule requiring Canadians staying more than 30 days to register with U.S. authorities or face penalties hasn’t helped matters. The Canadian Snowbird Association is fighting to get the burdensome rule lifted, but for now, many elderly Canadians simply aren’t going south.) Canadian businesses that rely on cross-border tourism are feeling the pain, and some Canadians are joining a broader “#BoycottUSA” movement, choosing to vacation elsewhere.

One dramatic illustration: Canada has quietly paused certain information-sharing with U.S. immigration agencies, fearing it could be misused to round up Canadians. For example, Canada’s CBSA (border agency) has limited the data it provides about Canadian travelers, after reports that U.S. ICE agents were mining travel records to flag and detain people who might have overstayed a visa in the past.

It all feeds into a narrative that American governance is veering toward authoritarianism. The CIVICUS Monitor – a global civil society tracker – recently added the U.S. to its human rights watchlist, citing “an alarming and rapid deterioration of civic freedoms” under Trump’s second term. The Trump Regime is smashing norms left and right: silencing dissent, targeting minorities, and concentrating power. The immigration crackdown is a central pillar of this critique, described as a “cornerstone of the government’s brutal and racist policy” implemented “without due process,”.

One can imagine scenarios where Canada feels compelled to escalate responses, resulting in a tit-for-tat spiral. A senior Canadian official, speaking anonymously, put it starkly: “We’ve never had to strategize about our relationship with the U.S. like this. It was always a given. Now it’s a variable – possibly a liability.”

A Call for Accountability

What began as an “America First” immigration crackdown has morphed into an international incident, crimes against humanity, and a test of North America’s foundational friendship. The pro-Canada perspective here is not about nationalism for its own sake; it’s a defense of sovereignty, human dignity, and the rule of law. Canada has every right to assert that its citizens must not be subjected to arbitrary arrest and abuse, especially not by a country that calls itself the leader of the free world. Canadian officials are correct to demand answers and to expect that habeas corpus and basic decency be honored. This is not only about Canadians – it’s about setting a precedent that no country’s citizens can be treated this way.

The United States has lost the moral high ground and the trust of its closest allies under Trump. The Trump Regime’s actions (kidnapping, torture, violent masked thugs deputized to commit state-sponsored criminal violence) have already been characterized as bordering on crimes against humanity by credible voices. The images of people like Jasmine Mooney weeping in a concrete cell, or Johnny Noviello returning to Canada in a body bag, will stain the pages of this chapter in U.S. history.

Americans of conscience are increasingly speaking out against the abuses done in their name, recalling that their nation was built by immigrants and allies, not by walls and cages. Canadians, unified in outrage, are reminding the world that no one–not even Uncle Sam – gets to trample on their rights without consequences. Canada and the United States have an extensive history of friendship, and that bond runs deep. The hope is that this dark period is an aberration – a test that both democracies will overcome by reaffirming the values that bind them. Until then, however, Canada is drawing a line in the sand and asserting: We stand up for our own. And if that means calling out our fascist neighbor for what looks like crimes against humanity, so be it. The true north strong and free will not be cowed, and the fight for justice for those 55 kidnapped/detained Canadians – and indeed for all who have suffered horrific human rights abuses at the hands of the Trump' Regime’s Gestapo – is only just beginning.