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Hannah, a summer ’08 intern for DWN, went on a jail visit with CAIR coalition. It was a very emotional, eye opening and reflective experience for her.
The first thing that I noticed was the doors. After we went through our second locked door, I decided to start counting. By the time we got to our designated room and set up our tables and paperwork, we had gone through eight locked doors. It seemed like nearly every door in the facility required somebody to let you through. That was probably the part of my first jail visit that surprised me the most; I found that kind of lack of freedom astounding. Typical of a prison, but shocking for someone who had never known that kind of deprivation of liberty.
The next thing I noticed was the room. The room that they led us to was a small-ish, cement room, with four tables and a basketball hoop. I thought it looked normal, but the leaders gasped and immediately requested that the guards open the window. The guard, apologizing that they were on lockdown, obliged, and a small square window was opened, letting in a bit of air and a ray of sunlight. The leaders told us that that was their “outdoor room”. I was blown away.
The guards brought in the first batch of immigrant detainees. Although this was a county jail, over half of all immigrant detainees are held in county facilities. The jails contract with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, to hold detainees at enormous profit. ICE pays an average of $95 a day per detainee.
At work, I hear mostly about cases where the detainee could be helped, and was being wrongfully detained. During the jail visit I was faced with the reality that the overwhelming majority of detainees are merely waiting to be deported. Most have already signed voluntary deportation papers, waiving their rights to see a judge, hoping to merely be deported as quickly as possible and reunite with their families. ICE officials tell them it will take about two weeks to be deported after they sign the papers; our experience shows that it takes from three to five months. In the meantime, tax dollars go to house, feed, and care for these detainees. I spoke with one man who had been detained for three months, who was nearly in tears. He told me that he had never committed or been convicted of a crime, and just wanted to be deported quickly so that he could get out of prison and reunite with his wife and children. I learned from him that immigrants view illegal immigration very differently than we do, and don’t always understand how or why it’s a crime. To them, they’re merely supporting their families. People with that mentality have no reason to sit in a jail, wearing prison garb, for three months.
United States law states that any person coming to this country without proper documentation must be detained. This law makes no exception for asylum seekers, who fled persecution, torture, or imminent death in their native countries. Asylum seekers very rarely come with proper documentation, as they were running for their lives, and generally declare their status as soon as they arrive. However, they are thrown in detention with the rest of them. International law states that asylum seekers should only be detained when absolutely necessary, because of the additional undue mental trauma it inflicts. Asylum seekers have no access to mental health professionals in detention, despite what may have happened to them. I spoke with a young man from Sierra Leone, who was younger than I am. He came to this country as a refugee when he was five years old, fleeing persecution from both the government and rebel groups, who had killed some members of his family. After he was convicted of a criminal offense, his refugee status was revoked, and he applied for asylum. A judge denied his asylum, stating that after eleven years there would be no more risk to him. This young man appeared extremely concerned; he said that in a third world country it’s different, that people don’t forgive and forget as people do here.
The other intern who came with me on the jail visit, Jenny, is here for the summer from France, and was given the job of communicating with the only French speaker in the facility. He was from the Congo, and while I don’t know much about his case, Jenny was surprised by his flawless French accent. She said that he was an engineer in the Congo, and now he is detained, and unable to communicate with those around him. People need to remember that it isn’t just illegal immigrants in detention, but often well educated refugees or legal permanent residents.
The jail that we visited was one of the nicer facilities, I was told, and it appeared as such. The floors and tables were white and clean, and almost none of the inmates had anything to report in terms of deficient medical care, or legal access, or phone access, which are common complaints among detainees. Afterwards, the whole group met with the jail’s warden, to discuss any complaints the detainees had. The only pressing complaint we had was that the list of the detainee’s case officers kept getting taken down. One case officer can be assigned to a multitude of detainees. This jail recently adopted a system to distribute case officers based on the last digit of the detainee’s alien ID number (A#). Several problems have arisen: the list keeps being taken down, and many detainees don’t know their A#. While I’m not sure if any action was taken, I was pleased that the jail cared enough to meet with our group after the visit to make sure that everyone was basically satisfied.
I haven’t had time or space to share even half of the stories here that I heard that day. Before my internship is over, I’ll be going on another jail visit. My goals for that visit are to more effectively separate my emotions from the experience. The group leaders emphasize that we should just fill out intake forms on the detainees and then move them along, and not stop and hear their stories; that way, they have the opportunity to help more people. I found that very difficult, because the detainees seemed so desperate for company and to be heard. However, in this line of work, I feel that I have also learned the importance of developing an emotional barrier to the detainees’ plights in order to continue living a normal life, and to not be weighed down by the overwhelming injustice of their situation.
