UPDATE: Becky is home!
This one is very personal to the Broken Frontier team. R. E. Burke (who wrote for Broken Frontier as Rebecca Burke between 2020 and 2023) is currently being held in a US detention centre after being detained at the US-Canada border while on a backpacking holiday. It’s a truly horrific story which has now been covered by the BBC here. In a post on Facebook over the weekend Rebecca’s father Paul explained the situation in more depth. There are further details in that story on the BBC site.
Urgent Appeal: Help Bring Becky Home
Our daughter Becky, a 28-year-old British tourist, has been caught up in the recent immigration crackdown in the US. What was meant to be a life-changing four-month backpacking trip across North America has turned into a nightmare. Becky has now been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for over ten days, with no clear timeline for her release.
On February 26th, Becky attempted to cross the Canadian border for the next leg of her journey. Unfortunately, due to an incorrect visa, she was denied entry into Canada. When she tried to return to the US, she was refused re-entry and classified as an “illegal alien.” Despite being a tourist with no criminal record, she was handcuffed and taken to a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington.
Becky’s current conditions are deeply concerning. She is sharing a cell, surviving on a diet of cold rice, potatoes, and beans (she is vegan), and has limited access to phone calls. Visitors are restricted to speaking through a glass screen via telephone. All her possessions have been confiscated, and she feels isolated and desperate to come home.
We are doing everything we can. Our local MP has contacted David Lammy’s office, and we are in touch with the British Consulate in London and San Francisco. An American friend is helping by sending funds to her inmate account so she can buy basic necessities like tea and milk. However, progress has been slow, and we urgently need more support.
We are asking for your help. Please share Becky’s story widely through your networks. We hope to connect with experts, legal professionals, or anyone who can offer advice or assistance. Becky is a kind, adventurous young woman who simply wants to return home to her family.
Thank you for your support.
If you can share that BBC news story on social media to help spread awareness please do. We also posted about the situation here on Bluesky yesterday. Becky is a much valued member of our community and in her time with BF was so passionate and dedicated in working to promote artists and our wider scene. You can see her writing for the site here. She put in the work too with her Over-Inkers anthology where she provided a platform for multiple artists to talk about issues of mental health awareness. And she also generously provided some of the promotional art for BF’s 20th anniversary celebrations back in 2022 (below).
As I said at the top of this page, this has been of the greatest concern to the BF team both present and past, especially those who worked with Becky on the site in those early years of the pandemic, interacted with her at events, or sat on the odd morale-raising team Zoom call during lockdown. Decency will eventually prevail and we look forward to the time when this kind and thoughtful human being is back with her family, friends and community.#BringBeckyHome
Updates from outside of the comics community:
BBC Newsnight coverage (24 minutes in)
Don’t forget you can also donate to the Bring Becky Home! GoFundMe fundraiser here
I, as an American, want to kick the asses of the idiots who voted for our present, so called, administration. I am sorry for the suffering your friend is experiencing as well as many other innocents.
I shared the BBC post and hope others will as well. I will do what I can to help by being vocal and standing for all our rights!
Thank you Kathy.
I second this!!!
I live close to Tacoma WA where she’s being held. How can I help?
Amen, Kathy. Sharing Becky’s story and praying for her quick and safe return home. Most of us do not support the orange shitgibbon, and I’m so sorry that Becky has had to endure this
[…] result of a visa mix-up, her plight widely reported by the BBC and other mainstream news services, and by Broken […]
[…] Hope is not lost However, and with the help of the gofundme campaign linked HereThe Difficul Legal Battle For Burke’s Freedom Can Be Supported. Her Family and Friends Have Been Posting Regular Updates, and with Any Luck, Hopefully Burke Will Be Uble to Return Home To The United Kingdom Soon. It is difficult to imagine how immensely stressful and difficult This situation must be for burke as well as her loved ones, a situation which Realisticallly Could Happen to Almost Anyone. RUGARDless Of The Legal Reasoning Behind Her Detention, Her Reported Treatment Comes Off As Unnecessarily Harsh and Intense. Andy Oliver of Broken Frontier, Former Colleague of Burke Writes: […]
[…] of the big stories in comic books this week is the case of R. E. Burke, a UK comics artist who has been detained by ICE since February. This is but one instance involving […]
From what I’ve been able to see online, it seems like Becky and myself might be a similar type of person – contemplative, obsessed with comics, artistic, studied philosophy. Because of this, Becky’s situation has affected me in a big way emotionally.
I feel weird making assumptions about a person I’ve never met, but one thing that seems apparent from reading some of her comics is that she is a gutsy person. Her comics are so personal and honest, and to have the capacity to be open with the whole world about really sensitive things seems like a liberating and healthy way to live. It takes a lot of guts to be able to do that, and I envy her for it.
When reading those comics, I found it hard to deal with the idea that this person was being treated like absolute shit at that very moment, and still now at the time of writing. The grotesque level of unfairness, maliciousness and stupidity of Becky’s situation is sickening and farcical. It is also despair inducing to think about about all the other people stuck in the same prison and others like it around the world, often held indefinitely, many of whom would likely have even more harrowing stories.
After Becky is released, I’m guessing the story won’t really be over. It can take a long time to deal with being stuck in a traumatic situation, and I really hope that she can recover and continue with her honest approach to life. It would be a shame to lose that, but I wouldn’t blame her if she did after this.
Hopefully these words don’t sound silly coming from a stranger. Apologies if they do. Thanks for reading.
They are not getting published and are simply being deleted in the moderation process, but this post seems to be attracting comments from those determined to ignore the established facts, repeat debunked untruths, and generally act as enablers for fascism. Post away to your heart’s content but no one is going to see your bile. It’s telling indeed that not a single one of these individuals has the courage to post under their actual names.