Bay Area college student rejected from England

MINETA SAN JOSE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (KGO) -- A Bay Area college student is back home after a very quick trip to Great Britain. In fact, 23-year-old Trevor Padree never saw more than London's Heathrow Airport after being detained by immigration officials. His family calls it a nightmare.

Pardee is arriving back in San Jose and reuniting with his mom after a trip to England that was supposed to be fun and exciting.

"Instead, I'm treated like a horrible person over a simple clerical error or whatever you want to call it," said Pardee.

Pardee is a senior at UC San Diego. He went to England for a two-week, non-paid internship with a tech analyst firm, but customs agents at London's Heathrow Airport demanded a work visa which Pardee didn't have.

He said he was detained for nine hours, questioned and fingerprinted, then moved to a hotel near the airport overnight where he guarded by agents.

"It really did seem like a prison," said Pardee.

The next day, he was told he was being sent back to the United States.

"I thought, 'I don't know what is going on?' I'm just a regular person just trying to start a career," said Pardee.

Pardee's mother, Esther Andrews, said, "It's been an exhausting nightmare for all of us." She admits she was panicking. "I couldn't call him. They took his cellphone away. They gave him another phone, but I couldn't get through to him."

The company where Pardee was going to intern tried to help, even getting a lawyer and going before a judge.

Andrews: "They were told that the job market in the United Kingdom is very tough right now and they felt that an American was coming to steal a job from a UK student who should have been given that job."

Barnard: "But it was an internship."

Andrews: "It was an unpaid internship for no college credit."

Andrews plans to contact her local representatives about what happened to her son.

Pardee says he's home for good and that he never wants to leave America.

We reached out to London's Heathrow Airport, but have not heard back.