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?