In July of 2016, my brother had to surrender to immigration authorities despite having a pending appeal hearing for 2018. There had been several incidents that led to some legal trouble, but they all rooted from the domestic abuse he had suffered for almost 10 years. However, being that society doesn’t typically recognize or acknowledge men’s domestic abuse, my brother was stuck between a rock and a hard place. In the 10 months my brother was detained at the Tacoma Detention Center run by GEO, a contractor of the Department of Homeland Security, I learned many lessons, but I have to admit that the biggest take away I have to offer you at the beginning is that you cannot allow your spirit to break. Here we go:
- You cannot allow your spirit to break: Growing up undocumented it’s a challenge in itself. You’ve already been humbled by the concept that you don’t belong in this country despite your family coming here when you had no choice, in search of a better life. Your spirit has already taken a beating. But now, you’re put into a facility where you are institutionalized and treated as if you’re less than a human being. You see, my brother was one of a few detainees who is bilingual. He grew up in this country. The guards take out their frustrations of not being able to discipline the monolingual detainees who are from all parts of the world; Nepal, India, Haiti and yes, Latin America too.
As one who had a brother in this center, I have to admit that my spirit felt broken every time I visited my brother. This is supposed to be a low security facility, yet there are no contact visits unless you’re loved one is about to get the biggest boot out of the country. But every time I visited my brother, I gave myself a pep talk. And at times, I left that place in tears because I could not stand the circumstances that detainees like my brother are put under.
- Visiting your loved one is a must: As much as you can, you need to visit your loved one. As much as it hurts you every time. As much as you cry every time. As much as you are forced to skip a meal while you wait your turn to see your loved one. It hurt. To spend half the day driving to Tacoma and back to Seattle and all the time waiting in between. But then you realize that other people all over the state are driving hours to see their family just once a month if that. You have to help your loved one grow patience and not give up the fight on their case. Because people lose their mind the first three months there and choose to sign over their voluntary departure than wait six months for a trial or to have enough money to get a bail hearing.
- Give yourself and your family pep talks: In addition to supporting your loved one, you have to support your family, as broken as you feel inside, you have to keep moving forward. You have to dig deep and tell your family to remain positive in the middle of the storm. And if you’re a spiritual person, you lean on your Creator to help you find that strength to find the encouraging words to lift their spirits up so they can continue to be supportive of your loved one who is detained.
- It costs more money to be detained: My brother spent 10 months detained. That was 10 months he couldn’t work to provide for his daughters. That was 10 months that my family and I pitched in to help keep enough money in my brother’s commissary so that he could buy supplemental food so he wouldn’t become malnourished by the detention center’s diet. You have to come together as a unit and not feud over the circumstances to be strategic with how you will come up with the funds for legal representation and any expert witnesses you may need to help support your case.
- Lean on friends: Not everyone has a anti-immigrant mind and that was a tough lesson for me to learn. Through this process I learned that my friends were so much more supportive than I could ever imagine. I never once asked for money from them, but some put money in my brother’s commissary to help relief the financial burden from us. A friend of ours, who is like our brother from another mother, absorbed part of the costs of our expert witness to do an evaluation. And sometimes, what’s free is what means the most, courage and pep talks from your friends. Even though in their naive minds they do not understand the difficulties and mountain that your family has to climb to be successful in this case, their innocent encouragement is exactly what you need.
- Speak up, eventually someone will listen: A few months ago, there was a chicken pox outbreak in the detention center. The health representative hired by the center informed the detainees that they were lucky it wasn’t Tuberculosis because that’s airborne. Well after I left the center, a google search quickly told me that chicken pox was airborne. And since my brother had already had the pox, he wasn’t likely to get it again, but there were others who could suffer complications. My sister and I did our best to reach out to media outlets to see if they would cover the story since I think in 2006 or 2008 this particular center had a similar problem. They go through the motions of booking detainees so quickly that they do not wait for the labs to come back before sending them in with the rest of the population.
- Be grateful: No matter what people did for us during these 10 months, big or small, I was so grateful and I reminded my brother to ensure that he thanked all these people when he came out. In situations like these you learn who your true friends are. And despite it being tempting to be petty and lash out to the ones who claimed to be your ride or die homies, you have to focus your energy toward the ones who support you and constantly thanked them for putting up with your emotional rollercoaster of emotions.
- Be kind to the detention center staff: That was is a tough pill to swallow. But one of my mentors always told me that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. You never know when you’re going to get locked up in your apartment garage and miss visiting hours and call from your garage and ask for a shorter visit in light of your circumstances. The officers for sure will remember you and do what they can to help you if they can. In my case, they let me have a 30 minute visit because I called them to tell them what happened.
- There are so many volunteer groups that want to help support you: These people are not busy bodies. From the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, to the Latino Advocacy group and the wonderful people who run an RV (AIDNW)with supplies for people who are being released who do not have family or friends here and even the senior group from the church in Fox Island who hand you snacks and have toys for the kids visiting the center. There are so many people who want to help you and don’t know your circumstances and frankly don’t care how your relative landed in the center–they are just wanting your family to stay together and do what they can.
- Every no gets you closer to a yes: I know this isn’t the case for everyone, but after almost 10 years of being tied up in appeals, with the legal staff and expert witnesses who believe in you, will help you advance your case.
My family and I are so grateful for everyone’s support in the process. We are especially thankful for Melissa Campos at Avelar Law and Claudette Atuna who has her own practice and volunteers with NWIRP.
Though this particular chapter is nearing closure for my family and I, I do plan to volunteer with AIDNW and help translate documents when I can and donate women and men’s clothing and shoes for the recently released detainees.
La lucha sigue. We are not free until we are all free.
GameOfGiveAndTake 