Today, the presiding judge had hearings scheduled for about 15 women and their children. I was representing five of them and was hoping for a full bond hearing on three of them. These last three were the reason I was at the office until 1am last night. Due to attorney shortage, there was no one to prepare their cases until yesterday and I ended up drafting all the relevant legal arguments, motions and materials last night and faxing them to the court around 12. My colleagues were in the same boat.
At the start of the day, the judge (appearing televideo from D.C. area in the court trailer) re-arranged the order of her cases for the day which created chaos for the guards who were trying to coordinate the transfer of women and toddlers to the court section of the facility. Some were originally scheduled for the morning and were brought into the waiting room at 6am, only to wait the entire day for their hearing. Obviously, this is especially tough for the children, who are bored sitting in a small room all day with nothing to play with except a coloring book. On the other hand, it probably differs little from their other days in Artesia.
My day mostly consisted of running back and forth between the lawyer trailer and the court trailer, trying to guess what cases would go forward and when, and how to prepare my clients, who were staged in various places waiting for their hearings.
One of my clients had a bond hearing; the other two were delayed until Wednesday for lack of time. The client who had a bond hearing came from Honduras with her 17 year old son, her 9 year old daughter and her 3-year old daughter. She was threatened at gunpoint by a gangster in her home town and left the country with her 3 children, fleeing the gangster, the increasing violence in Honduras, and crushing poverty. When the judge announced a bond amount of $22,000 for her to be released from Artesia, she disintegrated. I was at a complete loss as I saw my client burst into tears and collapse into the arms of her son. I sat with her in the next room afterwards as she wept, unable to look at me. Having slept only a few hours, I was exhausted and emotional and it was all I could do not to blame myself and break down crying with her. The 9-year old had tears in her eyes too. The 3-year old went back to coloring in her book. All the mother could say was, "I have been detained for so long..." This family has been detained in Artesia for about 2 months and will likely remain there for at least 1 or 2 more unless she acquires the $22,000 to secure her release. I should specify that it is $10,000 to secure her own release, $6,000 for the 17-year old and $3,000 a piece for the 9-year old and the 3-year old.
Today, I had more undirected interaction with the moms and kids, because of all the waiting around for hearings. In the afternoon, I went into the bathroom trailer and encountered a child of about 4 playing in the sink. She was enjoying covering her face in the foam soap and splashing around the water. This seemed to absolutely delight her. While there aren't many toys in Artesia, kids find ways to play- it's just in their nature, and this is part of what makes Artesia and the sight of detained children an uncomfortable experience. Her mom could not speak Spanish- only a Mayan language, so she could only communicate with me through the help of her 11-year old son who spoke some Spanish. His mom was confused because she thought she had court but they had been waiting for 8 hours and no one was able to explain what was happening.
Late in the afternoon, I was finally getting ready for the last two hearings, and I sat in a waiting room chatting with my two client mothers and another woman waiting for her hearing. Their children played together or slept in their mothers' arms, while their moms shared their stories. They said that the ICE officers were alright- "if we don't bother them, they don't bother us"... but they added "they don't seem to understand kids, though." They explained that all the children were denied sweets, at all times, which drives the kids nuts. The guards will eat chocolate in front of the kids, but not allow the children to enjoy sweets. One woman said that in the beginning, the guards would offer candy to kids who would clean the bathrooms. Many, of course, would run to clean the bathrooms to earn their candy. She thought this was unfair to her toddler who was far too little for bathroom cleaning, so she herself stepped in to clean the bathroom and collect the prize, only to be told the officers were out of candy. It seems this and many other troubling practices tapered off as the media and attorneys began to catch wind of the situation down here. They all agree that the medical service for the children is inadequate and were frequently sent away with the advice to give their children more water as a remedy for things like fever.*
The attorney team is in constant flux here. People come down for a week or a few days, and then have to return to their practices. Wednesday, we lost Alvaro. Last night we lost Allegra, and tonight we will lose Fiona and Ali. But a new recruit, Meredith, came in last night. To her credit, she actually got into town at midnight and went straight to our church/office to see if she could help. This morning, she was thrown into the chaos- she was set up with a woman who was scheduled for a hearing later the same day, with no prior preparation, because the rest of us were at capacity. She met the client and within 30 minutes had bonded with her and was 100% committed to seeing her case to the end, even if she had to do so from her home office in LA over the coming weeks. She spent her whole morning passionately preparing her new client for a hearing. I'm sure it was the sleep deprivation/heightened emotional state, but I teared up thinking about the way everyone on this project hits the ground running; it's disorienting to arrive in this strange place, but put a client with a claim in front of a lawyer and she knows what to do, whether it be in a city office or the middle of the desert. This is the way each of us begins here. By tomorrow, Meredith will be a veteran.
In the evening we finally gave ourselves a break to have a few cocktails at one of the 5 bars in Artesia. Though it's only been a few days, it feels like we're all fast friends. Tonight we welcomed Danielle, our newest addition.
*Though I have heard sickening stories about ICE officers in Artesia, I want to give a shout out to those officers who have in fact been a pleasure to work with. Most of the officers are here on 45 day rotation and, like us, come from different states and backgrounds. They control government policy no more than we do.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Artesia- Day 2
We closed up the office at 1am, after a very long day. Tomorrow, our team will have dwindled to 3 people to cover about 12 court hearings scheduled for the morning. Some of them no one has had time to work on until today. My caseload has doubled in size from yesterday to today, and I've already become a veteran here- it feels like it's been a week.
I spent most of today meeting people to get to know their stories and prepare them for their hearings tomorrow, where we will make a request for the judge to set a bond to release them. Every woman has a child with her at these meetings, often between the age of 2 and 5. Some of them are sullen and cling to their mothers, others are bright-eyed and playful. A great many are sick, as there seems to be some kind of virus going around with the kids here. Of the women, many of them seem to be hopeless and demoralized, but in one heart-warming interview today, a woman told me that she was still happy she had come to the United States because the detention facility was better than the hell she had been living through in Guatemala. She was the victim of an abusive boyfriend (the father of her child) who had joined one of the gangs, and changed his personality dramatically. Aside from the usual problems of jealousy, beatings and rapes, he also humiliated her for having indigenous roots. On one occasion, he forced her to remove a traditional indigenous dress and then he burned it in front of her. Although she left him, he stalked her and beat her in public for years. After one particularly severe occasion where he dragged her down the street with his motorcycle, leaving scars up her whole arm, she left town with her 2 year old son and headed north for the long journey.
Two representatives from UNHCR toured the facility today and joined us later for our nightly pizza/beer/work-fest. The prolonged detention policies in the United States have caught their attention; per UNHCR, detention should be avoided where possible and where necessary limited to a week or two in all cases due to the incredibly harmful psychological effects of detention. It should also not be discriminatory and should not inhibit refugees seeking political asylum. Almost all the women in the facility came to the United States seeking protection from severe physical harm or death. And then there are all the small children. Many of these children have been detained now for over a month, and some as much as two. Most have lost a lot of weight since arriving.
I met with a woman today who was granted a bond of $7,000 for herself, and $7,000 for her 3-year old boy. If a relative can pay all $14,000, they can walk out of Artesia, but it doesn't seem likely. $7,000 to ensure that a 3-year old is not a flight risk?
I spent most of today meeting people to get to know their stories and prepare them for their hearings tomorrow, where we will make a request for the judge to set a bond to release them. Every woman has a child with her at these meetings, often between the age of 2 and 5. Some of them are sullen and cling to their mothers, others are bright-eyed and playful. A great many are sick, as there seems to be some kind of virus going around with the kids here. Of the women, many of them seem to be hopeless and demoralized, but in one heart-warming interview today, a woman told me that she was still happy she had come to the United States because the detention facility was better than the hell she had been living through in Guatemala. She was the victim of an abusive boyfriend (the father of her child) who had joined one of the gangs, and changed his personality dramatically. Aside from the usual problems of jealousy, beatings and rapes, he also humiliated her for having indigenous roots. On one occasion, he forced her to remove a traditional indigenous dress and then he burned it in front of her. Although she left him, he stalked her and beat her in public for years. After one particularly severe occasion where he dragged her down the street with his motorcycle, leaving scars up her whole arm, she left town with her 2 year old son and headed north for the long journey.
Two representatives from UNHCR toured the facility today and joined us later for our nightly pizza/beer/work-fest. The prolonged detention policies in the United States have caught their attention; per UNHCR, detention should be avoided where possible and where necessary limited to a week or two in all cases due to the incredibly harmful psychological effects of detention. It should also not be discriminatory and should not inhibit refugees seeking political asylum. Almost all the women in the facility came to the United States seeking protection from severe physical harm or death. And then there are all the small children. Many of these children have been detained now for over a month, and some as much as two. Most have lost a lot of weight since arriving.
I met with a woman today who was granted a bond of $7,000 for herself, and $7,000 for her 3-year old boy. If a relative can pay all $14,000, they can walk out of Artesia, but it doesn't seem likely. $7,000 to ensure that a 3-year old is not a flight risk?
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Artesia- Day 1
This morning I headed to the facility at 6:45am. The 6 other volunteers lawyers and I piled into a van to transport us to part of the encampment where the law office of sorts has sprung up over the past 6 weeks. The ICE officers were friendly and pleasant. The lawyer trailer consists mainly of a room the size of a Holiday Inn dining area, with tables about that distance apart for meeting clients. There is also a divider that has been erected on one side on the room. Beyond this, the lawyers have a narrow corner to themselves, where they are free to use cell phones, get on the internet and eat snacks.
I had my first meeting of the day at about 7:15am with a young girl from El Salvador accompanied by her 7-year old daughter. She was very pretty and in El Salvador had had the misfortune of attracting the attentions of a prominent member of the M18 gang. When she refused his advances, he showed up at her house with 6 of his cronies to beat and gang rape her. As she still wasn't persuaded, he arranged for 3 more such visits over the next 6 months and began to make threats on her life. She finally fled to the United States. She was caught on entry and appeared for several hearings, before finally accepting an order of voluntary departure from the judge and returning willingly to her country. The process had taken 4 years and she felt safer. She was gang-raped again within a week of arriving home, and again a month later. As if this wasn't enough, her daughter was kidnapped for ransom two weeks later (a common occurrence for people coming home from any amount of time in the U.S.). She sold everything she had to pay the $5000, and bought back her daughter. They soon wanted more money and went after her teenage brother, landing him in the emergency room. With nothing left and everything to fear, all three of them fled again, and mother and daughter have been languishing in Artesia since June. An officer initially tried to deport her saying she had no fear of going home, but a judge overruled it. My goal will be to try to secure a bond for her so she can be released and apply for asylum outside of jail.
The next mother I met (at about 10) had a 2-year old and was fleeing a particularly brutal domestic violence situation in Honduras. Her bond hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, so this took up a great portion of my day. I still have yet to fax to the court my bond motion, exhibits and memoranda for this case and the hearing is at 8am. The judges appear by video from HQ in VA so I have no choice but to fax. I've now been told this particular judge will refuse all of my documents and set the bond hearing out to a later day, because she is refusing faxes. I'm told to "get it on the record anyway" but it's a little disheartening. These detainees are trapped in the middle of nowhere and the judges are hearing their cases over a video, so faxing seems reasonable. There are no overnight courier services in Artesia. The child is two and sick with a persistent cough, she barely took her head off her mom's shoulder throughout our interview. Her mother was in tears through most of the interview.
When I was asked to meet a third, I started to understand the problem down here, because it was 1:00 and I had barely made progress on my other two cases. I knew nothing about this new person except that she too has a hearing tomorrow that I needed to prepare her for. I need to familiarize myself with her case tonight so I am ready for the hearing myself. At a glance, it looks like she and her husband were assaulted at gunpoint in Honduras; specifically, gang members shoved a gun into the husband's mouth and said they were taking over the family store to use it for drug sales. Her father died of a heart attack shortly after and her mother ended up in the hospital from shock and she still remains there. It also looks like documents still need to be submitted. Everyone here is so overwhelmed by the system.
The rest of the afternoon was balancing between meetings and trying to do the work on the first 3 cases. I am exhausted but still hopeful about the system. My colleagues here are depressed and seem worn down by the place. I'm not quite there yet, but everyone is saying that no matter what they do or how they present their cases, they do not seem to be able to create justice for their clients. These are traumatized women and tiny kids being treated worse than some criminals in the U.S. Judges are agreeing to bonds of $25,000 plus. I have two bond hearings tomorrow, so will know better.
Back to work!
I had my first meeting of the day at about 7:15am with a young girl from El Salvador accompanied by her 7-year old daughter. She was very pretty and in El Salvador had had the misfortune of attracting the attentions of a prominent member of the M18 gang. When she refused his advances, he showed up at her house with 6 of his cronies to beat and gang rape her. As she still wasn't persuaded, he arranged for 3 more such visits over the next 6 months and began to make threats on her life. She finally fled to the United States. She was caught on entry and appeared for several hearings, before finally accepting an order of voluntary departure from the judge and returning willingly to her country. The process had taken 4 years and she felt safer. She was gang-raped again within a week of arriving home, and again a month later. As if this wasn't enough, her daughter was kidnapped for ransom two weeks later (a common occurrence for people coming home from any amount of time in the U.S.). She sold everything she had to pay the $5000, and bought back her daughter. They soon wanted more money and went after her teenage brother, landing him in the emergency room. With nothing left and everything to fear, all three of them fled again, and mother and daughter have been languishing in Artesia since June. An officer initially tried to deport her saying she had no fear of going home, but a judge overruled it. My goal will be to try to secure a bond for her so she can be released and apply for asylum outside of jail.
The next mother I met (at about 10) had a 2-year old and was fleeing a particularly brutal domestic violence situation in Honduras. Her bond hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, so this took up a great portion of my day. I still have yet to fax to the court my bond motion, exhibits and memoranda for this case and the hearing is at 8am. The judges appear by video from HQ in VA so I have no choice but to fax. I've now been told this particular judge will refuse all of my documents and set the bond hearing out to a later day, because she is refusing faxes. I'm told to "get it on the record anyway" but it's a little disheartening. These detainees are trapped in the middle of nowhere and the judges are hearing their cases over a video, so faxing seems reasonable. There are no overnight courier services in Artesia. The child is two and sick with a persistent cough, she barely took her head off her mom's shoulder throughout our interview. Her mother was in tears through most of the interview.
When I was asked to meet a third, I started to understand the problem down here, because it was 1:00 and I had barely made progress on my other two cases. I knew nothing about this new person except that she too has a hearing tomorrow that I needed to prepare her for. I need to familiarize myself with her case tonight so I am ready for the hearing myself. At a glance, it looks like she and her husband were assaulted at gunpoint in Honduras; specifically, gang members shoved a gun into the husband's mouth and said they were taking over the family store to use it for drug sales. Her father died of a heart attack shortly after and her mother ended up in the hospital from shock and she still remains there. It also looks like documents still need to be submitted. Everyone here is so overwhelmed by the system.
The rest of the afternoon was balancing between meetings and trying to do the work on the first 3 cases. I am exhausted but still hopeful about the system. My colleagues here are depressed and seem worn down by the place. I'm not quite there yet, but everyone is saying that no matter what they do or how they present their cases, they do not seem to be able to create justice for their clients. These are traumatized women and tiny kids being treated worse than some criminals in the U.S. Judges are agreeing to bonds of $25,000 plus. I have two bond hearings tomorrow, so will know better.
Back to work!
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
August 26th- Arriving in Artesia
I finally arrived in Artesia at 9pm today, after a couple of flights and a 4 hour drive through high plains and semi-desert. There is very little between Albuquerque and Artesia, aside from Roswell and some cows.
Tomorrow morning at 6:45am, I'll be meeting the other volunteer lawyers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center that since June has been serving as an "family" detention facility for 600 Central American moms and their children. They were part of the recent "surge" and were apprehended at the border after fleeing their native homes in Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador.
This is Week 6 of the American Immigration Lawyer Association's pro bono project down here. Before AILA started rounding up lawyers to represent these women and their children, they had no counsel and deportations were swift and efficient. Now, immigration attorneys have begun to volunteer- usually a week of time- so the operation down here has turned into a makeshift law office of sorts and each week one attorney leaves and a new volunteer attorney steps in to carry on the cases. It's taken some brilliant organizing to make this run smoothly, but it seems to be working. Every week, policies seem to be improving to get due process to the people detained at the facility.
I expect the work down here will involve 1) Intakes with clients in Spanish to see if they are "refugees" under the asylum law, 2) Helping clients articulate their fears successfully in interviews with an immigration officer 3) Representing clients in bond hearings (arguing to an Immigration Judge that these women and children should be released upon payment of a reasonable bond so they can pursue their legal claims outside of this detention center), and 4) Representing them in claims for Political Asylum in an Immigration Court. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
I have been hearing horror stories from the lawyers OTG (on the ground) before me. I've been hearing about flagrant violations of human rights and mistreatment of the children (the average age of the children at this facility is 6.5)... about loss of dignity, about women having to recount stories of violent domestic abuse and rape in front of their children, about lack of food, clothing, medicine and respect for the inmates and crowding in close quarters. It's been described at worse than a refugee camp. But I will post my own impressions once I've been there.
The past week or so has resulted in some major media success for the folks down here. On Friday, the ACLU the American Immigration Council and the National Lawyers Guild filed a law suit against the federal government to shut Artesia down for violations of due process and other human rights violations. The NY Times covered this on Friday here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/us/us-faces-suit-over-tactics-at-immigrant-detention-center.html?_r=0. Earlier this week, NYT also published an editorial on these issues: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/opinion/at-an-immigrant-detention-center-due-process-denied.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140825&nlid=65464890&tntemail0=y. PBS has done a great job covering the "crayongate incident" at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/battle-rages-new-mexico-border-detention-center-crayons/ and the general conditions down there: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/immigration-lawyer-helps-detainees-new-mexico-know-rights/. And our group has also made the local paper as of this week: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/front+page/1481049b8cbd6c6e. It's exciting times.
If anyone is interested, this article provides some good information on why the Central Americans are fleeing:
http://theconversation.com/gangs-the-real-humanitarian-crisis-driving-central-american-children-to-the-us-30672
Stay tuned, hopefully I'll get a chance to post more tomorrow.
Megan
Tomorrow morning at 6:45am, I'll be meeting the other volunteer lawyers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center that since June has been serving as an "family" detention facility for 600 Central American moms and their children. They were part of the recent "surge" and were apprehended at the border after fleeing their native homes in Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador.
This is Week 6 of the American Immigration Lawyer Association's pro bono project down here. Before AILA started rounding up lawyers to represent these women and their children, they had no counsel and deportations were swift and efficient. Now, immigration attorneys have begun to volunteer- usually a week of time- so the operation down here has turned into a makeshift law office of sorts and each week one attorney leaves and a new volunteer attorney steps in to carry on the cases. It's taken some brilliant organizing to make this run smoothly, but it seems to be working. Every week, policies seem to be improving to get due process to the people detained at the facility.
I expect the work down here will involve 1) Intakes with clients in Spanish to see if they are "refugees" under the asylum law, 2) Helping clients articulate their fears successfully in interviews with an immigration officer 3) Representing clients in bond hearings (arguing to an Immigration Judge that these women and children should be released upon payment of a reasonable bond so they can pursue their legal claims outside of this detention center), and 4) Representing them in claims for Political Asylum in an Immigration Court. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
I have been hearing horror stories from the lawyers OTG (on the ground) before me. I've been hearing about flagrant violations of human rights and mistreatment of the children (the average age of the children at this facility is 6.5)... about loss of dignity, about women having to recount stories of violent domestic abuse and rape in front of their children, about lack of food, clothing, medicine and respect for the inmates and crowding in close quarters. It's been described at worse than a refugee camp. But I will post my own impressions once I've been there.
The past week or so has resulted in some major media success for the folks down here. On Friday, the ACLU the American Immigration Council and the National Lawyers Guild filed a law suit against the federal government to shut Artesia down for violations of due process and other human rights violations. The NY Times covered this on Friday here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/us/us-faces-suit-over-tactics-at-immigrant-detention-center.html?_r=0. Earlier this week, NYT also published an editorial on these issues: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/opinion/at-an-immigrant-detention-center-due-process-denied.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140825&nlid=65464890&tntemail0=y. PBS has done a great job covering the "crayongate incident" at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/battle-rages-new-mexico-border-detention-center-crayons/ and the general conditions down there: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/immigration-lawyer-helps-detainees-new-mexico-know-rights/. And our group has also made the local paper as of this week: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/front+page/1481049b8cbd6c6e. It's exciting times.
If anyone is interested, this article provides some good information on why the Central Americans are fleeing:
http://theconversation.com/gangs-the-real-humanitarian-crisis-driving-central-american-children-to-the-us-30672
Stay tuned, hopefully I'll get a chance to post more tomorrow.
Megan
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