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!
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