AILA Member Megan Kludt headed down to Artesia to donate her time and knowledge, seeking to help the women and children jailed and facing an expedited deportation process. Here, in her own words, are a few snapshots from her days so far, for the full blog, see: http://immigrationartesia.blogspot.com/
Arrival
“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 a “family” detention facility for 600 Central American moms and their children…
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…
Day 1
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…
Day 2
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…
Two representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) toured the facility today…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…
Day 3
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…At the start of the day, the judge (appearing by 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…
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…
Day 5
…It’s impossible not to be moved by children. You smile at them instinctively. You want to protect them. But these children have been in jail for two months. Many of them don’t eat. They don’t like the food. They have diarrhea. Most of them have lost weight, some as much as 20% of their body weight. And above all else, these are bored little kids. They are now allowed crayons and coloring books in our waiting room, so they color for hours on end. There are few other toys…
One of my clients today asked me to arrange for her deportation. She was breastfeeding and said that her son will not consume anything at the facility and is sustained entirely on breast milk. He is constantly sick. She had her bond hearing and the Judge set a $20,000 bond for her and another $20,000 for the 1 1/2 year old. I’m concerned that returning to living in fear of her life in Honduras is preferable to her life in ICE custody. She cannot stay in Honduras; she is a refugee, but she will find another country to flee to next time.
…I’ve decided to extend my stay.
Day 6
This morning, I did bond preparation with the first client I met in Artesia (last week). Her bond hearing is Wednesday…I had to leave in the middle of the interview to get a hug from one of my colleagues. I cannot imagine any worse suffering than what she has been through. If the bond on Wednesday is set high, I will truly lose all hope.
She gave me the government’s submission in opposition to her request for bond. The government is submitting identical 100+ page briefs in every bond case in Artesia. They argue that releasing the women and children detained in Artesia on a low bond would create a security risk for the United States because it would encourage further migration of central American women illegally across the border. In other words, we are detaining some Central American women and children as an example, to deter others from coming to the United States.
Days 7 & 8
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 apiece. 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…
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.
…We are all still running on junk food, coffee and little sleep, but somehow it doesn’t seem to matter right now.”
Written by Megan Kludt, Artesia Volunteer