The family contacted me to arrange for our interview under conditions of anonymity, because they fear reprisals.

The family's home was raided by 10 I.C.E. agents.  The family is five people, two children, a very young woman, a pregnant mother, and a father.  It must have been alarming to see so many agents converging on their small home in their five black Chevy Tahoe SUV's.  The agents are intimidating.  The mother asks to see a search warrant, and is told that it is in the car.  The search warrant is never produced, but in our new America, that doesn't matter.  The agents figure a lie about having a search warrant is the same as having one, and enter the house anyway, manhandling the pregnant mother outside to the waiting vehicles, over the protests of her husband.

They are unnecessarily rough as they separate the children from their parents to interrogate them.  They tell the children that they shouldn't keep secrets, as if the agents believe it is their place to teach these children what is right and wrong, or as if they believe that it doesn't matter what is said as long as another immigrant family is arrested.  The children's parents are not questioned.  I suppose that the agents must be trained not to waste time on those who are old enough and wise enough to be able to defend themselves against their own fear.

The agents ask the mother and father for their passports, but they were never issued passports.  The family was living in the United States legally, and had been granted political asylum based on the fact that a relative had been murdered for political reasons in their native Guatemala.  They had dutifully re-applied for asylum every year, as required by law, until one year they didn't receive the renewal notice they had received every year since their status had been granted.  The family tried to follow up, but was not able to figure out a way to renew their political asylum before deportation orders had been issued for the mother, the father, and the oldest daughter.  The result of these errant deportation orders was the overzealous raid of the family's home.  (Editor's note:  This is as the family related the information to us, however, it has come to our attention that it is more likely that they were applying for work permit renewals each year, not political asylum, as it is not required to re-apply for political asylum once granted.  The family was likely issued deportation orders in absentia, a common occurrence when families move and do not entirely understand what is required of them in order to maintain their legal status.  The fundamental point of the story, that the family is being deported becuase of a missed paperwork deadline, is not at issue.)

The agents locked the mother in the Tahoe, along with another woman who had also been arrested.  She requested that she be allowed to go to the restroom, but the agents denied her request.  It is common that woman who are pregnant need to use the restroom more often than usual, and extreme discomfort can result.  She is not allowed to relieve herself until well over an hour later.

She could see her two sons sitting on the floor near the house, close to four I.C.E. agents talking amongst themselves.  At this point, they had finished interrogating the children, so the mother was able to speak to them from the inside of the van.  The younger son was speaking to his mother through the floorboards, and he was going to the restroom to call neighbors to warn them to tell his sister not to come home from church.

Before they left the house, a CPS officer asked them with which relative they should leave the two younger brothers.  She wanted her children to be left with her mother, but they could not reach her mother to make arrangements.  At that point, ICE told the mother that they could try one more phone call to find a place for the children, and if they couldn’t get a hold of anyone, they would take the children away from their family and place them in foster care.

She was crying the whole way to the jail because she feared her children had been given to foster parents.  She was only able to find out that her kids were safe three days later when she called the pastor of the church, who told them that they had been with her sister.  Is this kind of fear now the punishment for being in our country without papers?

They took mother, father, and another pregnant woman and husband to the Yakima County Jail.  She stayed at the jail for 8 days, when she was taken to the Northwest Detention Center with 15 men and 3 other women, all of whom had been arrested for immigration violations.  On the way, I.C.E. found out they had made a mistake with two prisoners, and they drove an hour back to the jail to make a switch.

By the time they arrived at the Northwest Detention Center, she had been in the van for five and half hours, chained to her seat.  As a result of this, she was experiencing severe back pain, nausea, pressure in the area of her baby, and what she believed could be early labor pains.  She was placed in a small holding room with the three other women.  Around 2 in the morning, she asked to see a doctor because of the symptoms she was experiencing, and she was told there were no doctors, only nurses.  When she saw a nurse, she told the nurse she needed to see a doctor right away. She was told there was no doctor available until the next day at 7am, and was taken to the main prisoner barracks.

She finally saw a doctor around noon.  She knows because in the gym where the bunk beds for the 150 women were located, there was a clock on the wall.

When she finally saw the doctor, the doctor said that her symptoms were normal, considering what she had been through, and didn’t give her any medication or relief.  It is her belief that the doctors are not truly acting out of the best interests of the patients, but are acting instead to save the company money.

She was then experiencing depression, and told the doctors about this.  They told her to relax and have patience.  One of the doctors was rude when she asked for a medical recommendation that she not be allowed to travel because of her sickness and depression, and be released.  She says that she would have followed deportation instructions at that point and that she knew there was no way out, so there was no reason for her not to be released.

On one occasion, the mother was taken to the hospital, complaining of similar symptoms of back pain and pressure, plus bleeding, and her baby was moving less than usual.  She complained of the symptoms around 6pm, and was taken to the hospital in wrists and ankle chains around 8pm.  The ankle chains were briefly removed in order for her to disrobe for the examination, then replaced while she was being examined, taken off again in order for her to put her clothes back on, and immediately replaced.

While she was at St. Joseph’s, she never saw a physician, only a nurse, who measured the baby’s heartrate and reactions to see what the movements of the baby were.  After monitoring for a couple of hours, she was taken back.

She was imprisoned at the Northwest Detention Center for 6 weeks.

The beds at the Northwest Detention Center are made of metal plate, the mattresses are about 3” thick, but offer no support.  When she would wake up, she would have a lot of back pain, as if her bones were cracking, and every movement was painful.  There were no special arrangements made for pregnant women at all.  She asked the doctor for an extra mattress and extra pillow, but was refused.

She received three meals a day.  Breakfast would be a small bowl of corn flakes, one piece of bread with a little jam, and coffee was provided, but pregnant women should not drink coffee.  For lunch, a sandwich with soy meat, 2 pieces of bread, sometimes mustard, and a small amount of canned vegetables.  Pregnant women received one half pint of 2% milk per day.

Her husband has gone from 145 pounds to 125 pounds since he has been there for 8 weeks.  He is also going bald because the water in the showers is too hot, and is experiencing stress and depression.

The family has no money because the only member of the family that could work is the stepfather who is still detained.  The mother has lost legal guardianship of her children, automatically as a result of her arrest, and so is no longer eligible for welfare, food stamps or other assistance.

The mother also relates a story of another inmate who came across a picture of another inmate strangling themselves in a uniform they were folding or washing.

On the men’s side of the prison, a story was related about an inmate who was vomiting blood who was not attended to immediately.

Husbands and wives are not allowed to communicate directly by any means.

All she wishes for is to have her baby before she is forced to leave.  It is the family’s belief that I.C.E. is deliberately trying to force her out before she has the baby, because the baby would become a U.S. citizen.  She believes the conditions in the prison are unfair considering the offense, and that there must be some element of racism involved to explain the way they have been treated.  The family thinks that the worst criminals should not be treated the way they have been.

I.C.E. eventually negotiated with their attorney for her release.  The family believes that the efforts that they were making to publicize the circumstances of the case led I.C.E. to move to deport the mother early.  The daughter believes that there was a TV station that was going to begin an investigation based on information she had provided, and therefore I.C.E. moved to deport her mother without notice.  I.C.E. usually notifies inmates’ families a day or two prior to executing a deportation, but the mother of this family was awakened at 2am to be told that she was being deported. 

One woman in the detention center complained of hearing threatening voices and having hallucinations, saying people were staring at her.  She became agitated and was screaming, and exhibited signs of deep depression.  The mother believes the woman’s symptoms were real, and at least for the seven weeks she was there, didn’t receive any medical attention.
There were also about four people with diabetes.  One woman had been there for a year, and one day was taken to the hospital for an emergency.  It was discovered that the woman had a tumor in her head.  She had been complaining of headaches for some time, but the mother doesn’t know how long.  This woman was released, and the mother believes that it was because the NWDC did not want to be responsible for medical bills, not because they were concerned for her health.

The family came to America because the mother’s father was killed for political reasons.  The people who killed her father had threatened to kill the entire family through anonymous letters.  The family had been harassed and threatened by men in the middle of the night, knocking on the doors and threatening them.  The mother believes that the father was killed because he was a powerful politician and they wanted him out of the way, but to this day it is a mystery.

The two younger brothers were born in the United States, and therefore are United States citizens, and are not being forced to leave.  However, if their mother, stepfather and sister are forced to leave, their family will be separated.

The family were granted political asylum in August, 1998.  The mother says that she has the political asylum paperwork, which needs to be renewed every year.  Every year, INS sends a letter requesting renewal of the political asylum, and the family believes that when they moved in 2002, the letter was not forwarded.  Although the mother tried to file the paperwork to renew the asylum, it was refused.  As a result their asylum expired in 2002.  The family has tried without success to renew their political asylum.

The daughter has lived in Washington State since she was two, and knows no other place.  She was going to college until recently, when all these problems caught up with her and she had to drop out.  She wants to pursue a degree in business, but has been unable to remain is school due to the situation.

Five family members, Mother and father, daughter and two brothers have been ordered to leave the country with two weeks of her release.

Mother says that in the beginning, when she first arrived, America was what she expected, but now, this is no longer the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTrR1s7du6s