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Issues Highlighted in Story:
Gang-based Asylum
Unaccompanied Minors
Operation Community Shield
Person’s Background Before Detention
At age sixteen, Jose fled his native El Salvador to escape forced recruitment and persecution by the MS‐13 gang. Because Jose feared that the MS gang would kill him if he returned to El Salvador, he applied for asylum in the United States. The MS‐13 gang first approached Jose and his schoolmates about joining when Jose was only thirteen. Right away Jose told them that he wasn’t interested in joining, but they persisted. Jose and his best friend Pedro were the only two boys in their town who didn’t join. Despite constant pressure and increasing threats, Jose was determined not to join because he knew that nothing good would come from being an MS‐13 member. In fact, former gang members had come to his school and warned the students about the dangers of gang life. They showed the students their scars from knife fights and talked to them about their drug addictions. This was not the kind of life Jose wanted for himself.
Because of Jose’s persistent refusal to join, MS‐13 came to view him as their enemy. By the time Jose was fourteen, MS members began to verbally harass and threaten Jose whenever they saw him walk by. They gave warnings such as, “If you aren’t with us, then you are against us,” and, “If you don’t join the gang, we are going to kill you.” Jose was very frightened by these encounters. He knew that MS‐13 carried knives and guns and he lived in fear that they might use them on him. By the time Jose was fifteen, MS‐13 made good on their threats and harassment by attacking him physically. On three separate occasions, Jose was brutally beaten by them. The third attack, just before Jose’s sixteenth birthday, was the worst. While he was walking with his friend Pedro, eight MS members approached them, put their hands around their necks, and threw the two friends up against a wall. The gang members punched Jose and Pedro in their stomachs and their faces. They punched them over and over again, to the point where Jose began to vomit and to spit up blood. To Jose, it seemed like the beating would go on forever. When the MS members finished assaulting Jose and Pedro, they abandoned them. The beating was so severe that Jose required medical attention. The permanent scar above his eye will never let him forget the terror that was inflicted on him.
Circumstances Leading to Detention/Immigration Proceedings
A couple months after this beating, MS‐13 members murdered Jose’s friend Pedro on account of his continued defiance of the gang. After Pedro’s murder, Jose realized that MS‐13’s death threats were real. Jose began to panic. Fearing that death was around the corner, he fled, without telling anyone and without any money. He eventually made his way to the United States, but was arrested upon entry by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. With the help of nonprofit immigration lawyer Christina Wilkes, Jose filed for asylum. The immigration judge has yet to make a decision on this case. Attorney Wilkes describes Jose as timid, shy, and too traumatized to speak about what had happened for a long time.
Conclusion
Operation Community Shield and similar programs subject individuals to an abbreviated deportation process where little time is spent determining their fear of return to their home country is credible. Individuals like Jose are at risk of having legitimate asylum claims ignored by immigration officials.
