Diaries of Doing Time Until the Ice Men Cometh

On December 2nd 2005, Philip Jones arrived for another day at work in his adopted city of San Diego. But within minutes of stepping out of his car, he was surrounded by federal marshals and handcuffed. He had absolutely no idea of what he was being arrested for.

As it turned out, after nineteen years of living, working and paying taxes in America, Jones’s application for a US passport had aroused suspicion. In a newly paranoid America, his unorthodox entry to the country – via a loophole in visas – now placed him in a new world: behind bars in two of San Diego’s correctional institutions. He was one of few British inmates to see, first hand, the startling truth behind America’s hysterical fear of immigrants – 97% of his fellow inmates were Hispanic.