There is nothing like working alongside a steady stream of adrenaline. Waking up, dressing yourself, eating cookies for breakfast, and driving along an empty, desert highway to a compound tucked between a ranch and a state prison.
Through a metal detector you walk, just after neatly rearranging the entire contents of your backpack into a bin. Even the wad of tissues. Even the granola bar. The guard counts the amount of Advil you brought, because you can only bring enough for one person for one day. Depending on the day, you may be whisked through the gates as soon as you arrive, or made to wait until 8 am, the start of visiting hours.
One day, I wear a sleeveless blouse. One of the guards thinks the straps are thick enough. Another reminds me to keep my blazer on. One day, a fellow volunteer wears a top that is deemed too sheer. "I've worn this in court," she says. "Keep your cardigan on," the guard tells her, "I don't want to get in trouble for your outfit."
Over the week, we learn the names of the guards we interact with the most. One of them tells us her family is horrified that she works at such a place. They were once immigrants themselves. "I tell them, if I don't work here, who will?" She is named after a delicate flower. When we need to see clients urgently, she helps us find them. Their every move is tracked in a database we do not have access to.
The pro bono project's "offices" are in a large portable building. I went to a rural elementary school; I am reminded of my second grade classroom. The same drab tiles, bright lights. The impression that "this is only temporary," and yet, more than twenty years later, my elementary school is still dotted with these mobile shacks.
There is a large empty "lobby" area, where clients wait to meet with us and where we hold our large meetings. Along either side of the lobby, there are small rooms that are used for one-on-one meetings. Two, maybe three, are reserved for visitors. During my week there, I rarely saw visitors. Who can afford the expense or make the time to come to Dilley? It is 70 miles southwest of San Antonio.
Nearly all the women and children I speak with have family or friends waiting for them, eager to welcome them and help them build a life here. Some women hope to reunite with relatives in Tennessee, Virginia, California, New Jersey. Some will stay in Texas, but even so, it is 361 miles to Dallas and 563 miles to El Paso.
Amalia* is the first woman I meet. She is breastfeeding a tiny girl whose teeth have barely started to come in. She has left a young son in El Salvador. "Bring me a toy when you come back," her son gleefully asked when Amalia's father came to collect him.
Amalia and her two children were kidnapped by members of the MS-13 after Amalia refused to pick up extortion money for them. "Next time you don't listen to us, we will break your feet. And if that doesn't teach you, we will kill you." Within a week, she had cobbled together every penny she could and fled.
Founded in California, and spread across Central America via the mass deportations of the Reagan Administration, the MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) is notorious for unrelenting brutality. In Dilley, I learn about "papelitos" (literally, little papers) left on car windows and slid under doors, foreshadowing harms to come. I learn how you can spot gang members by the clothes they wear and their prominent tattoos. I learn of homes tagged, small business owners extorted, young girls kidnapped, children murdered.
Five years ago, I traveled to Guatemala City, then drove north through the jungle to Tikal--unaware of the past and present surrounding me. The sounds of birds and insects ring in my ears, and the face of a young soldier at a checkpoint appears, when I think back to the trip. In a four door sedan, under the stars, moving towards a small town in the shadow of a once-great civilization.
Maritza* has streaks of blonde in her hair and red rimmed glasses. She considers herself a city girl, but her last name reveals her indigenous place of birth. To escape an abusive spouse, she and her children fled from Guatemala City to her remote hometown where the only work you can find is picking coffee beans. The elders speak a native dialect here; Maritza's mother and grandparents remember the civil war. Soldiers took a machete to Maritza's grandfather, and he lost an arm. His only crime was being born a "campesino" (a native peasant farmer).
The law of asylum is not easy to understand. You must prove you are in danger. You must prove the authorities cannot help you. You must prove you cannot be safe in any other region of your country. You must prove you are being targeted for a specific reason, an unalterable characteristic.
Sometimes we spend hours coaching our clients, fitting their stories into the parameters of the law. Helping them organize their thoughts chronologically. Assisting them in coming up with examples and lines of reasoning to defend assumptions. Asking them to recount horror upon sadness, so they won't freeze up in the their Credible Fear Interviews, where they'll be prodded by a stranger sitting across a desk and typing on a computer, who relies on a translator present only by phone, who can show no emotion and little empathy, and asks question upon question, to the point where it would be easy for an onlooker to assume they were watching a trial, an interrogation.
Nataly* is the only person I meet who could ace the Credible Fear Interview without any help from us. She grew up in Texas as an undocumented immigrant and returned to Mexico in her twenties. In July, her husband was kidnapped and publicly executed by a cartel. Though she is reeling from the pain of losing her partner and father of her children, she cannot pause to mourn. Nataly has kept detailed, written notes on every aspect of her case. A family member drove her to a point of entry, where she immediately pled asylum--and was then sent here. Our entire conversation is in English; her accent is exactly Texan.
Nataly was the exception. Most of the women I meet with have not finished secondary, or even primary, school. Many have been forced into relationships with older men, pushed into having children as soon as they are old enough. Some struggle to write, and others cannot read or write altogether. Often, I'll ask what part of their country they are from, and they'll shrug and say they are not sure.
We leave just before 8 pm each night. It is August, and the sun is still bright as we drive to the mobile home park where we are staying. Late into the night, we type our notes into the database. We email the permanent staff for advice and for help requesting special accommodations--translators for women who speak native dialects, female asylum officers for victims of unspeakable sexual violence, further medical evaluation for children with fevers, coughs, and rashes, who until now, have only been offered Vick's VapoRub.
It is midnight, and I cannot sleep. I simultaneously wonder how it is possible to do this work for weeks on end, and how I will ever be able to leave. When on Friday I walk away from the residential center to return to Portland, I do not turn for a final glance. I feel as if the next morning I will be back, emptying the contents of my bag onto a conveyor belt, ready for the next wave of adrenaline to hit.
*Names changed, per women's request for anonymity.
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I traveled to Dilley, Texas as part of my volunteer affiliation with the Innovation Law Lab, an exceptional nonprofit organization on the front lines of the fight for asylee and refugee rights. If you would like to learn more, please contact me at victoriabmuirhead@innovationlawlab.org.
