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The head coach of the Australian mixed martial arts (MMA) team says he spent 24 hours in an American jail when United States immigration officials detained him for a visa “mistake”.
Renato Subotic has described the ordeal as “chaos”, claiming he was stopped at the US border on his way to coach a seminar.
“I arrived in America excited, ready to coach my seminar. It was supposed to be a great trip,” he wrote on Instagram.
Instead, the 33-year-old says he was detained by local officials, handcuffed, and taken to a federal prison.
‘They were taking me to jail’
Subotic said he was stopped by officials who took him to a private room and interviewed him for three hours.
“They told me there was a mistake with my visa and that they were taking me to jail,” he said.
After being stripped, searched and fingerprinted, Subotic says he was driven to a federal prison.
“No clear explanation, no chance to talk to anyone, no rights.”
‘Madness’
The moment the door opened it was chaos. Fights between gangs. People screaming. Arguing over food, what to watch on TV, crazy people running around. Madness.
Renato Subotic, Australian MMA team head coach.
Subotic said he got into a fight with two other inmates who tried to steal his blanket and sheet.
Under his initial Instagram post, Subotic says that he is now back in Australia and would be speaking with his lawyers.
“Something has to be done about the way I was treated,” he said.
“I hope this never [happens] to nobody else.”
Immigration crackdown
Subotic’s story comes amid US President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown and the toughening of US border rules.
Trump recently terminated the legal status of 500,000 immigrants who moved to the US in 2022.
There have also been reports of tourists being taken to US immigration detention centres for weeks at a time over visa issues.
German man Lucas Sielaff was locked up for 16 days after he was accused of violating his tourist visa.
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