A Winnipeg-born man was deported from the United States to Canada last month without identification, capping two stints totalling nine months in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, one of which a federal judge had already ruled unconstitutional.
Clayton Herman, 54, arrived at Vancouver International Airport on Aug. 26, 2026, according to CBC News. Canadian officials confiscated his emergency travel document on arrival, according to reporting by the Turkish outlet Anadolu Agency’s anews.com.tr, leaving him without identification and, so far, without work.
Herman grew up in Winnipeg’s Transcona neighbourhood and entered the U.S. on a visitor’s visa in 2002, according to CTV News affiliate CP24. He worked odd jobs in Southern California, including stints in community theatre and as a band roadie, after his visa lapsed. He was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Montana following a nearly two-year absence tied to grieving the 2021 death of his longtime partner, CP24 reported. He was released on his own recognizance and complied with reporting conditions until May 2025, when ICE ordered him to wear an ankle monitor.
In October 2025, ICE arrested Herman again, alleging 18 violations of his supervision conditions, and held him at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, CP24 reported. He described the facility as a “vile wretched hellhole” and said, in comments carried by anews.com.tr, that he had been held in “a concrete blockhouse behind razor wire” with “sewers belching foul miasmas of wretched gases.”
On June 15, 2026, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Kaufman ruled that Herman’s detention had violated his due process rights, finding ICE gave him no meaningful chance to contest the alleged violations. The only evidence submitted, Kaufman wrote, was a Department of Homeland Security form that “does not list the type or date of the violations, or provide any other information about how petitioner allegedly violated his conditions,” according to CP24. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time only that a judge had ordered his release pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.
Herman’s freedom lasted five weeks. ICE re-arrested him in July, alleging he had violated the terms of his monitoring device, which he said was “glitchy,” and citing delayed mail related to his deportation appeal, CP24 reported. He was deported the following month.
Herman’s case fits a wider pattern Global Affairs Canada has struggled to address. The Globe and Mail reported in August 2025 that nearly 150 Canadians, including two toddlers, had been held in ICE custody that year alone. NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson said at the time that one Canadian child had been detained for more than 51 days and called the situation “both illegal and inhumane.”
Ottawa has no legal duty to intervene on behalf of citizens detained abroad, even in the United States. A 2018 report by then-auditor general Michael Ferguson found that in roughly two-thirds of cases examined, consular officials had not contacted detained Canadians within the 24-hour window promised under the department’s own service standards. A parliamentary committee that same year declined to recommend legislation guaranteeing consular assistance, warning it could create expectations the department could not meet.
That gap leaves open a question Herman’s case does not answer: whether Ottawa will help a returning citizen replace identification confiscated at the border, or find work, now that he is home with neither. It is not clear whether Global Affairs Canada has been in contact with him since his return.
Via CBC News, CTV News/CP24 and anews.com.tr. Original reporting: CBC News and CP24.
