What is scary about the Border Patrol is that they never bother notifying anyone, nor do they let you do so. If you cannot talk to anyone, and nobody is told that you are held, how can there be any guarantee that anyone will find out that you are a citizen and do anything about it?

In fact the cynical ones among us will note that if they did discover a mistake, human nature would say that they should just let you rot to avoid the publicity of having to publically admit to the situation, and make other people think about it...

Cheers,
Ben