Saroukos said officials conducted a body cavity search, walked her through the airport in handcuffs, and drove her to the Federal Detention Center.

“They stated, ‘No, you’re not under arrest. You haven’t done anything wrong, and you’ll be facing no criminal charges.’ So I was very confused as to why this was all happening,” she said.

At the prison, Saroukos was strip searched and detained with women who had been convicted of murder and drug offenses. She shared a cell with a woman from Fiji, who was also denied entry and waiting to be deported.

Because Saroukos had missed the cutoff for dinner, she was not given food. At no point was she allowed to call her husband or mother.

All they’d need to do to make the media forget about this forever is say something like “Look, mistakes happen and this was unacceptable. Nevertheless, we believe what we’re doing is correct, we intend to change nothing, and we reject any comparison with any of the many other times this has allegedly happened.” There’s almost no chance they do that, because they equate even the smallest appearance of accountability with weakness.

Instead, they’ll probably have Noem come out and say “this woman was a Chinese slut honeypotting our brave American troops for the CCP, and this brave service member privately reached out to President Trump to thank him for doing such a great job for our country.”