A grandmother has warned fellow Brits not to travel to the United States while Donald Trump is in office after she was shackled and locked up for six weeks by ICE agents – despite having a valid visa. 

Karen Newton, 65, from Hertfordshire, had been on the holiday of a lifetime with her husband Bill, 66, when she was detained while trying to leave the country. 

She was handcuffed and slept on the floor of a locked cell, before being driven for 12 hours through the night to an immigration detention centre. 

Ms Newton, who does not have a criminal record and holds a British passport, was incarcerated for over a month before being allowed to fly back home. 

She said she had done everything she needed to do to be in the country, including being in possession of the correct visa.  

Ms Newton and her husband left the UK in July last year for a two-month multi-state road trip with the hope of finding some ‘guaranteed sun’.

They toured Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and California before attempting to cross the border into Canada where they would spend the remainder of their holiday.

However, Canadian officials turned them back, saying they didn’t have the correct paperwork to bring the car with them.

Karen Newton, 65, from Hertfordshire, had been on the holiday of a lifetime with her husband Bill, 66, when she was detained while trying to leave the country (file photo)

Pictured: The immigration centre in Tacoma, Washington where the Newtons were held 

And by the time they returned to Montana on the American side, Ms Newton’s husband’s visa had expired, although hers had not. 

She said they immediately offered to pay for their flights but the officials ‘weren’t interested’. They were then made to wait in an office from 10.30am until nightfall. 

‘It was scary. You have no way of knowing what’s going to happen,’ Ms Newton told The Guardian. 

‘It got darker and darker. And then other agents turned up with all these chains and handcuffs.’ 

The couple were shackled at the waist and ankles, before being transferred to a patrol station in Montana where they were made to sleep in a cold cell without beds.

Ms Newton said she was detained because her husband had worked in the US with a permit but had not been a granted a green card, so he had decided to go back to the UK.

She was told that she was ‘guilty by association’, and that she had broken the terms of her valid B2 tourist visa by helping her husband pack for the trip. 

Ms Newton, however, believes that ICE agents are simply looking to detain as many people as possible and get a bonus each time. 

She said: ‘Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that.’ The organisation has denied these claims.

Investment into the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has soared under the Trump’s administration.

Rebecca Burke (right) from Monmouthshire, south Wales, was trying to enter Canada from the state of Washington when she was also arrested in the US

Its annual budget is now $85billion compared to just $6billion ten years ago, and since last August, new agents receive a signing-on bonus of up to $50,000. 

The Newtons were ultimately offered the chance to return voluntarily to the UK in exchange for a 10-year ban from entering the US, which they accepted.

They were then transported, in shackles again, to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, which Ms Newton described as ‘essentially a prison’. 

She was given a grey sweatshirt and jogging bottoms to wear and issued with an ID card and wristband.

Ms Newton claims it was here that she was forced to sleep on a thin mattress on the floor as she was unable to climb the ladder onto her top bunk. 

Then, on November 6 last year, the Newtons were told they were able to return home and were driven to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for a flight to the UK. 

Ms Newton has since warned against other Brits travelling to the US while Trump is in office for fear of something similar happening to them. 

She said that if it can happen to her it can ‘happen to anyone’, adding that the immigration situation is ‘totally out of control’.   

Ms Newton’s ordeal comes amid a slew of high-profile cases where international travellers have been detained by ICE officers. 

British backpacker Rebecca Burke, 28, from Monmouthshire, south Wales, was detained in a cell for almost three weeks last year after she tried to cross into Canada.

The graphic artist was told she should have applied for a working visa rather than a tourist visa.

German tattoo artist Jessica Brösche, 26, was stopped by ICE and held for 45 days in January last year

She was handcuffed and locked in a cell before also being taken to Tacoma Northwest detention facility. 

Ms Burke was taken to a dorm which she shared with dozens of other women, most of whom were asylum seekers.

Her father Paul Burke first contacted the British foreign office before deciding to bring it to the attention of the UK press.

Meanwhile, German tourist Jessica Brösche was stopped by ICE and held for 45 days in January last year. 

She was arrested by US Customs and Border Protection as she tried to enter the country through San Diego, from Tijuana.  

Brösche was traveling with her American friend Nikita Lofving as a tourist under the ESTA visa waiver program. The two had met in Tijuana and were carrying tattooing equipment.