Artesia- Day 7 & 8

Things are heating up in Artesia this week; you can feel the energy.  For some reason, this week has attracted more volunteers and attention than we know what to do with. Yesterday, we were up to 11 volunteer attorneys. Given my vast experience (3 days = 3 years in Artesia time), I've shifted into the role of coordinator and manage the flow of detained families to attorneys throughout the day at the detention facility, though I continue to have some of my own cases. Both today and yesterday, we saw between 50 and 60 moms and attended a number of hearings and "credible fear" interviews. Today, the number of volunteer attorneys increased to 14. At the "Big Table Meeting" at the church tonight, 3 more recruits arrived and asked me for jobs to do tomorrow. At the nightly meeting tonight, we had about 25 people- many had to sit on the floor. Our group tonight included a professor of refugee and human rights law, a doctor prepared to provide psychological evaluations to detainees, and a reporter.

With so many volunteers, every table in our little attorney trailer was always occupied today, as were the 4 semi-private cubicles. Artesia only confines mothers with children, so this meant that we also had 10+ small children running around our trailer at any given moment. At one point, some of the little boys started making paper airplanes and the trailer quickly became a war zone, with paper airplanes flying back and forth across the room while moms quietly relayed stories of domestic and gang violence to their attorneys. It was becoming hazardous for some of the unsuspecting female toddlers, who occasionally took an airplane in the nose while they were trying to color. At one point, I gathered all the young boys (aged 3-7) for a long-distance flight competition. I have to admit the attorney trailer was trashed by the end of the day. This is a pet peeve of the ICE guard for our trailer. But then again, what do you expect when you detain small children for hours on end in a little room?

Today we discovered that one of our children was skilled in the art of origami. He started with notebook paper, and one of our attorneys provided him with colored construction paper that she had brought. Soon we had several elaborate, colored roses. We discovered the writing skills of another child, who spent most of his mother's meeting drafting a mournful letter to President Obama. He was 8 years old. We had a similar letter from an 11-year-old last week that was published by Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/read-letter-11-year-old-migrant-detention-wrote-president-obama

We were scheduled for several bond hearings today. In the regular world, "bond hearings" in the immigration court last 10-30 minutes. In Artesia, they take almost 2 hours a piece. DHS has developed a theory that the Artesia children and their mothers pose a threat to national security if released on bond, because it will effectively encourage mass migration of more children and their mothers to the United States. We respond that these families are fleeing their lives in response to violence and persecution, rather than pursuant to a detailed understanding of the detention/bond process in the United States. Laura had some luck with her judge, earning a $5,000 bond for her family to get her out of Artesia. The hearing had to be stopped in middle so that our client could breastfeed. Our third bond case had to be continued for lack of time- it was approaching 5:00pm on the east coast. That client and her attorney waited for 9 hours to be called for court, only to be told to come back on another date. This same client went through the exact same ordeal Friday, when I was appearing with her. The judge had made an effort to set her to Wednesday because of what had happened Friday. To her credit, she said she will come in tomorrow on her day off to do it. My own hearing could not go forward due to lack of time and has been re-set to September 29 for a hearing on bond. The judge's calendar is full, so it will be an additional 26 long days in detention waiting for his schedule to be free.

The attorney who waited 9 hours yesterday spoke movingly about the experience at "Big Table" last night. She said at first she had been extremely irritated because she was trying to use the empty time to write bond motions and was having a hard time concentrating over the crying of the children. Then, she started to think about what it would be like to be a mother trying to care for her children in this environment, after already going through abuse in her home country for being a female and being Mayan, and making the long journey...how lucky she was that she would never have to go through anything like that, just because of the luck of where she was born. She burst into tears. We had to pass around the tissue box.

Another attorney managed to get a Q'anjob'al interpreter to interview one of the women who cannot speak Spanish very well. We have a fair number of people who speak this and other Mayan languages. These languages are not remotely related to Spanish, and these women cannot communicate with anyone in detention. They cannot communicate when their children are sick, or when they need anything. They cannot talk to other detainees. They can't talk to the lawyers.

Tomorrow, we will have our first "merits" hearing in Artesia. This means that the individual has not been able to post bond and is pursuing a request for asylum in the immigration court in Artesia at trial. Everyone will be watching tomorrow, including some news outlets. We have another hearing on Friday and on Monday.

Tomorrow will be insanity, with one trial, several bond hearings, master hearings, almost 70 people that we will try to meet, and about 20 volunteers from the AILA pro bono project all trying to be useful in a small space. If that weren't enough, the ACLU will be here tomorrow morning meeting with clients who are class action members in the law suit against the government. We are all still running on junk food, coffee and little sleep, but somehow it doesn't seem to matter right now.