19-year-old Sarah Van Egmond and her father are still upset that a trip from Victoria, B.C. to Ohio took a detour to a Federal Detention Center in Tacoma.

Telephone calls to her father from the Tacoma Detention Center are the lifelines keeping Sarah from freaking out. Sarah's spent the past five days locked up there.

And she has Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism.

"She was frantic," says her father John Van Egmond about when he first heard from her. "She was desperate, she was crying, she was losing it."

It all began last Friday. Sarah was flying through Sea-Tac Airport on her way to Ohio for a summer visit with her boyfriend. But customs agents thought she was planning to stay, circumventing immigration laws.

They decided to send her back to Canada.

"They do that based on what they see in front of them," says U.S. Customs and Immigration spokesman Mike Milne. "The person that's in front of them, the baggage that they have with them, the statements that they make."

And then, the big mistake. When told she could only stay in the U.S. if she had a credible fear of death or persecution if she returned to Canada, Sarah said yes...she was afraid.

"She doesn't process like you or I," explains her father, "she doesn't see things the same way."

U.S. Customs can't talk specifically about Sarah's case, but told KOMO 4 News when someone claims credible fear, officers have to follow procedures.

"The bottom line," says Milne, "is it's very serious business. When you arrive at the borders of the United States and you're talking to Customs and Border Protection Officers, this isn't a game, it's not a joke, these people are there protecting the security of the United States of America."

So Sarah was held in the detention center until an investigator from San Francisco could look into her asylum claim.

"She's just a young 19 year old girl with a neurological disorder," says her father. "She needed some help and some guidance and she did not get that."

Late today, the investigator ended Sarah's case, and the U.S. planned to return her to Canada and her father.

Sarah's father tells KOMO 4 News that Customs Officers will drive his daughter to the border and he expects to pick her up at the Blaine Peace Arch crossing sometime Tuesday night.