Diversity Matters: A Personal Reflection
Children’s Detention Center. What images arise in your mind when you hear those words?
At a recent speaking gig in south Texas, I was invited to attend a “field trip”. Meredith Linsky, Director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) had just given a lunchtime program with three young people, each of whom had spent time in the children’s detention center we were to visit.
I thought I’d skip the trip. After all, I had a presentation to review. Plus, I grew up in south Texas. I knew what I’d see. The last thing I wanted to do was damage my own credibility by crying in front of a group that was to be my audience. Wasn’t it enough to hear the young woman at lunch speak about her journey? Her words were translated as, “So hard. Very difficult. It is difficult to imagine how it was. It is too hard to describe.” Her eyes, her posture and her translator’s expression said more.
| “Every year, hundreds of asylum seekers are detained by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement in South Texas. They have fled civil war, ethnic
fighting and religious and political persecution. Most have little, if
any, money by the time they arrive in the United States and are not
able to hire counsel or post the substantial immigration bonds required
for release. “Having language barriers, little understanding of U.S. law and court procedures, and few financial resources, they face almost insurmountable obstacles to proving their asylum claims. As a result, many risk being deported back to places where they may face persecution and even death based upon their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” - ProBAR website |
We were going to the largest detained children’s residential facility in the U.S.
A 20-minute bus ride from the hotel passed in a whirl of conversation with my seatmate. I stepped out of the bus into the thick, moist, slightly sweet air of March in Texas. The olfactory input brought back many memories. “Leave purses in the bus,” we were told. We divided into smaller groups and followed our guide into the first building.
Our group stood in the reception area, just off the kitchen where staff members were preparing a meal. We learned that 120 fourteen – seventeen year olds were housed in this facility. Brown, vintage sofas with metal legs stood on bare linoleum, cracked and spotless.
We squeezed through a hallway into one of the girls’ dorm rooms. The sparse room seemed cheerful, with pink and white bedspreads on six bunk beds. It smelled just a little like the fresh summer camp cabins of my youth. Cubbies, perhaps 18 inches wide and stacked two tall on the wall, held each child’s belongings.
“Our kids used to wear uniforms,” our guide said. “But now, we issue different clothes. If someone sends things, the girls can keep those things as well.” In each cubby were items you might expect to see in any middle- or high-school locker: a pink, zippered backpack; a ruffled skirt; a Hello Kitty notebook and multi-colored t-shirts, flip-flops, jeans and hoodies. But these were not school lockers. These were small storage spaces for someone’s only belongings.
We walked through buildings and across spacious grounds. The majority of the kids in this facility come from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Others, including one of our lunchtime speakers from Somalia, travel the globe to South America seeking eventual entry to the U.S. They all come through Mexico, often on their own but occasionally in the company of a human smuggler who would have been paid an exorbitant upfront fee (average – $6,000) by a family member. Apprehended at the border, the older children are brought here. The average length of stay is 60 – 90 days. Our guide said, “For many of them, this is the happiest they will ever be.”
He offered a typical scenario: Mom comes to the U.S. to find work to support her family. There may or may not be a dad involved. The child is left with grandparents, often a grandmother. Something happens. Perhaps Abuela dies, perhaps there is conflict in the family, abuse by an uncle or some kind of political conflict. The child sets out to find their mother and ends up here.
Some kids are driven by necessity; others seek opportunity. When they arrive at this facility, they go to school. They receive physical exams and health care if needed. They have a chance to socialize. Attempts are made to match them with a volunteer lawyer who can help with the challenging process of applying for asylum. Our guide tells us that children do not try to leave because they feel safe here. They are treated well.
Visiting the aging classroom, we hear that most of these kids arrive with strong math competencies. Their education here focuses on language and other skills they will need to get by in this country, should they be granted asylum. We pass a small swimming pool and learn that most children arrive as strong swimmers, though lessons are provided anyway. (I think about the disproportionately high drowning rates for children of color who are born and raised in the U.S. and cannot swim.) We go to the cramped medical clinic building and learn that most of these kids are given a clean bill of health on examination. They have strong, clean, healthy bodies, even with what they have been through.
It’s Friday afternoon and the kids are having a dance. We cross a closely cropped field past some boys playing ball. Inside the gym, approximately 80 girls are sitting in folding chairs that line two opposite walls. Teachers patrol perimeters, chatting with each other and with students.
There are many groupings of girlfriends – some bold; some shy; some exaggerating teen gestures, tossing hair in high ponytails; others chatting softly with neighbors. Most of them are looking – whether it’s by staring directly or glancing furtively – at the knot of 35 or 40 boys who sit tightly together, packed in chairs at one end of the gym.
It’s a teen dance anywhere, anytime.
Three smiling, vibrant young girls look at me. One of them catches my eye. She looks deeply. So do I. My heart stops. My eyes burn. Then, I wave and grin. So does she.
“The South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) is a national effort to provide pro bono legal services to asylum seekers detained in South Texas by the United States government. The project recruits, trains and coordinates the activities of volunteer attorneys, law students and legal assistants. ProBAR is a joint project of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The Texas Access to Justice Foundation provides support to this project.” - ProBAR website
NOTE: Members of this vulnerable population who receive ProBAR’s legal services are four times more likely to be granted asylum than those who receive no assistance.
Jody Alyn
March 2010
