Mooney says she left a lot of women behind when she was released and wants to shine a light into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres and how people end up trapped there.

“I met a girl who had been in there eight months,” she said.

She says the women helped her get out — and urged her to tell their stories. Mooney says there were about 140 women in her unit at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, one of the first places she was held, in the Ysidro Mountains foothills of Otay Mesa overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border. She describes how most of the women she met had lived in the U.S. illegally and overstayed visas — detained with no warning when they reapplied.

“You meet all of the girls who had trekked from India, from Iran, from Africa, they’re covered head to toe in bug bites and scars from their journey and they paid all of this money, gave up everything they owned to come to America and then end up in jail and they’re all most likely getting shipped back to their countries,” said Mooney.