I spent last week at the detention center in Dilley, Texas, volunteering to help mothers and children detained there. Having previously experienced the harsh conditions at the facility in Artesia, I was immediately struck by the visible differences here in Dilley. Any former Artesia volunteer will do a double-take at the sight of a toddler-sized slide in the visitation trailer, or a guard bringing coffee to a mom waiting to meet with her attorney. At the beginning of the week I thought the air of hope I felt in the visitation trailer had to do with better conditions in the facility.
I was wrong. Although it’s a slightly “prettier” jail than Artesia was, it’s still a jail, and the women and children detained there feel this deeply. The air of hope I felt in the beginning had nothing to do with having toys for the kids in the play area. Rather, news of the RILR victory had spread like wildfire in the facility over the weekend, and the women thought they might have a chance at bonds their families could afford to pay. At some point on Thursday, these hopes were dashed as women were herded en masse in to the courtrooms, where ICE officers handed many of them paperwork for either a $7,500 or $10,000 bond, with no explanation of how they had decided on such a high number.
The atmosphere in the facility completely changed after this. The women we saw were despondent and confused, knowing their families couldn’t pay this amount, and wondering why such a high price should be put on their heads. One of the few “individualized determinations” we saw was in the case of a woman who fled with her toddler after receiving death threats from a gang. A week after arriving in Dilley, she found out that the gang had made good on their threats, killing the 6-year-old daughter she had been forced to leave behind. She was still in the facility when I left – her family couldn’t afford to pay the $4,000 bond ICE had set for her.
I know there’s a lot of work to be done building this project, and it seems daunting at the outset. But I also know that we need to be there, and we need to build a sense of trust and commitment between the volunteers and the detainees just like we did in Artesia.
It’s time to re-mobilize – these kids and moms need us to fight for them.
Written by Sarah Corstange, AILA Member and Dilley Volunteer
******
If you are an AILA member who wants to volunteer at a family detention center, please go to AILA’s Dilley Pro Bono Project page or feel free to contact Maheen Taqui at mtaqui@aila.org – we could really use your help.
To watch videos of the volunteers at Artesia and elsewhere sharing their experiences, go to this playlist on AILA National’s YouTube page. To see all the blog posts about this issue select Family Detention as the category on the right side of this page.