LETTER FROM JAMAICA (to fellow Jamaican still in US prison)

Well my brother, I am in the place and thank God that He carried me through and out. It was a journey for real, an experience not to be forgotten! I thought I would've written earlier, that was my intention, but I am somewhat swamped and overwhelmed by Jamaica and the fact that I am free.

I've been here since the 20th of last month and haven't been anywhere as yet. I've just been in the yard sitting back and observing. The place has changed as far as travelling, everywhere seem different, and I've got to begin to baby walk and get familiar with the place and getting around. My mode of transportation has been the taxi, but I'll soon have to try the buses as the taxis are proving to be expensive. You've got to get familiar with the money but I try to think in terms of the U.S. dollar when buying anything.

One of the first things you've got to do is get some form of ID. Something by the name of TRN [Tax Registration Number] card is mandatory for most business transactions. Then there's the NIS [National Insurance Scheme] card, an electorate card and either a passport or driver's license, also an updated birth certificate. The first one of these is the birth paper and then the others.

Well, the trip to Jamaica. We left Batavia [immigration detention facility] around 5 a.m. Tuesday the 19th, we drove for around 6 hours to Pennsylvania, and then waited for around two hours before we boarded a plane to go to Texas to drop off some Mexicans. We then flew back to Louisiana where we were put in a holding cell with a bunch of other men that were going down. We had to stay up or try to catch some form of sleep sitting down while TV is on and everyone speaking. We left out around 4 a.m. and finally reached Jamaica around 1 p.m. Forty-nine of us came down, 45 guys and four females.

In Jamaica they took us to Central [Police Station] where we were asked a bunch of questions from the cause of deportation, crime, where you are going to stay. They took pictures, tattoos, gold teeth, any markings. You could then leave.

When anybody [from prison] is going to Batavia, let them know they can have a couple set of clothes sent in. You can get cosmetics sent in too, socks, shoes and a bag. A travelling bag as you'll need to take the stuff you've got once you reach Jamaica.

At the airport and Central, both in the station-house and outside, people from everywhere looking at us as if we are on display.

Everybody have a cell phone in Jamaica and they suck up the little money you have as you try to call back to the states.It will probably take a couple of months for me to get adjusted, and then me seeing about what I am going to do down here as far as employment. I am here trying to get familiar with the phone,a lot of things on it I don't understand and need to do so. I also have to see what the internet is about.

So until next time, God bless, strengthen and keep.

One Love,

Children of Burma

Beautiful Karen children at a 2007 support rally for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Thank God for the BBC!

I listen on and off throughout most nights to the BBC news on my radio --from Zimbabwe, Haiti, the Gaza Strip, Burma -- bemusing the groggy dog on the floor at the end of the bed.
I listen because I have today, or perhaps will meet tomorrow, a client from that very country, sitting in detention waiting to discuss the latest developments from home. Perhaps he or she has had personal experience with the same situation discussed in the night; perhaps this news will impact their case.
I listen because I know I will find someone for whom this news is real, and whose life experience will add to my understanding of it.
I listen, because absorbing global news is a most special intersection of the intellect and the heart, and one of the reasons my work is so satisfying.

Marielito Especial

This is my friend Siso, a Mariel cuban who died several years ago. He had been out of prison and immigration detention for just about 15 months. He died of AIDS and anal cancer.
He had been a musician in earlier years, and the drums were a much loved Christmas present.

I first cut my teeth as an immigration lawyer helping Mariel Cubans get out of detention (where some had been held for years) with petitions for writs of habeas corpus. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has since ruled long-term detention as unconstitutional.

Don't know who Mariels are? Watch the very first minutes of "Scarface", and you will see real footage of Cubans on the boats from the seaport of Mariel.

Chinese Asylum Seekers

Here's how the young Chinese women pass their time in detention, waiting to see if their asylum claim will be granted. (Usually not). They make these beautiful gifts from tiny folded strips of paper.

Wear in Solidarity

Remember the yellow Star of David? What if everyone, Jew and non-Jew, all over the world had worn one?

In that spirit, be the first in your crowd to wear a "I AM ILLEGAL!" button. At the very least, it's a good way to start a conversation. What does it mean to label a human being as illegal?

Send:
$1.50 to cover the button and postage to: FIND, P.O. Box 51334, Kalamazoo, MI 49005.

It's non-deductible, but it all goes for postage stamps so I can write detainees and prisoners.

Poem for Purim by Primo Levi

“WAITING”

This is a time of lightning without thunder,
This is a time of unheard voices,
Of uneasy sleep and useless vigils.
Friends, do not forget the days
Of long easy silences,
Friendly nocturnal streets,
Serene meditations.
Before the leaves fall,
Before the sky closes again,
Before we are awakened again
By the familiar pounding of iron footsteps
In front of our doors.
*************
2 January 1949
by PRIMO LEVI from his COLLECTED POEMS
translated by Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann

We are all connected! What's the problem?

On 01/10/08 we went to follow a case of a fellow Rwandan imprisoned in the Monroe Country Jail in Michigan, USA. His immigration case had been adjourned to allow the Court time to find a translator. As we were in line for the security check-up, we saw a man we recognized as an African. We even said he looked like a Rwandan. The pastor who was with us had to take a fingernail-cutter found in my bag back to our vehicle, and on his way he greeted this man who told him he did not know what to do with his camera. The security officers would not allow him to take it into the building. So the pastor ended up taking it to our vehicle for him.
While waiting to enter the court room, we talked to him again. He told us he had come to interpret in somebody’s case. We then knew it must be the same case we were there for. We left him waiting while they called us to go and sit with the prisoner before the hearing started. More than thirty minutes elapsed before they called us to enter the courtroom. We met the interpreter in the hall-way. Immediately after we sat down in the courtroom, we were shocked to hear the decision of the Judge: the interpreter was disqualified because he had a connection with the family members of the prisoner. The prisoner became very upset by this. We only tried to console him by implicating God in that incident, the loving God who always has good plans for those who connect with Him.
We knew the name of the dismissed interpreter by the time we left. There is now a concern about how next time a new interpreter and family members will have to avoid each other. The problem is that we are all brothers and sisters, we are all connected, despite the existence of those demon-possessed individuals who hunt each other.
---FIND Board Member, Scholastique Bamurange

Rights of Non-Citizens

from “The Rights of Non-citizens”, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

This is a booklet published in 2006. I quote two paragraphs from its introduction.
“All persons should, by virtue of their essential humanity, enjoy all human rights. Exceptional distinctions, for example between citizens and non-citizens, can be made only if they serve a legitimate State objective and are proportional to the achievement of that objective.”
“Non-citizens should have freedom from arbitrary killing, inhuman treatment, slavery, arbitrary arrest, unfair trials, invasions of privacy, refoulement [forced return to a persecuting country], forced labour, child labour and violations of humanitarian law. They also have the right to marry; protection as minors; peaceful association and assembly; equality; freedom of religion and belief; social, cultural and economic rights; labour rights (for example, as to collective bargaining, workers’ compensation, healthy and safe working conditions); and consular protection. While all human beings are entitled to equality in dignity and rights, States may narrowly draw distinctions between citizens and non-citizens with respect to political rights explicitly guaranteed to citizens and freedom of movement.”
Interestingly,this booklet omits entirely the group we are interested in: non-citizens who are in jails and prisons, places where many of these rights either do not exist at all or exist in vastly weakened form for all their inhabitants.
I will be quoting from this booklet from time to time. If you want to know how to purchase it, check out the United Nations website: http://www.unp.un.org/.

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Real People, Real Stories

From our inaugural newsletter, FIND FILINGS January 27th, 2008
When I was deported from the States, a place I considered home, many things crossed my mind. “I haven’t been to my native country in about 23 years. “I have two children.” “I’ve even been in the armed forces, and I feel like I paid my dues to America – more than some of her citizens.”
Waiting for deportation was another dilemma. Smart-ass guards always had something funny to say. “”Wow, you’re pretty big for an Ethiopian!” or “How do you speak English so well?” There were even those who wondered how I had gotten to the States: “My goodness, that’s a long way! How did you get here?” Needless to say, at first I was in denial. Then I was angry, and then, reality kicked in. I had to accept the situation that I was in, and I realized that no matter what, I had to make the best of what was ahead. Basic necessities like hot water for showers, shelter, and food are hard to come by. People look at deportees in a very cruel way here in Ethiopia. They can’t comprehend coming back to live here. Especially coming back empty-handed. I was lucky enough to have good people around me here and in the States. I don’t want to mention any names, but certain people who work for deportees’ rights, I feel indebted to them. Thank God things are okay. I miss the States; I miss my kids and friends. But it is nice to be back in a place where you know you ain’t going to be deported from! One thing I want to add. I got involved in some criminal activities. I deserved to get punished, but this [removal] was way too extreme. My punishment was bad enough, sitting in a county jail and having to take a plea because the public defender was overworked. I’m not mad at them, just mad at myself for all the wrongs I did when I was a lot younger. So life goes on and if you’re handed lemons, you make lemonade, right? Things could be worse, but praise the Lord. He is watching over me through many people.Berhane K., Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Niemoller Redux: An Essay

1. First it was my neighbor
Last Memorial Day, my neighbor came across the street early in the morning and pounded on my door. She had never done that before. I was still in my pajamas. I thought she was going to complain about my barking dogs. No. She knew I was an immigration attorney, and she was coming to tell me her husband had been arrested. They had come to the house the night before and taken him away. They had two girls, one an infant, the other a hefty child named Angel who loved to ride her bike up and down the sidewalk. Mom, a U.S. citizen, worked as a receptionist in a medical clinic, where they loved her because she was bilingual. Dad, a Mexican, was a welder and brought home $16 an hour. They were making it.
Before they married, Dad had been a gangbanging teenager in California. He had a consensual sexual relationship with an underage girl, and when it turned sour, her mother called the police. He was convicted and sentenced to probation. Later he met his wife, moved to Michigan, and became a law-abiding, loving family man. I enjoyed watching them from my house, but we didn’t interact much. I remember once he tried to help find work for a Cuban client of mine, whom I had helped release from detention and who was renting a room from me. That must have been how the family knew I was a lawyer.
Of course, there was nothing I could do except explain to Mom how she could visit him in jail and where she could take his suitcase. He was an aggravated felon. He had no relief coming. Mom and the kids could move to Mexico, but he was not coming back.
Stories like these are a daily occurrence in my work. Unfortunately one becomes inured to the pain, or at least shuts it off as irrelevant and unhelpful. How many times I have said to my colleagues, give me a convicted felon in jail any time, over a sobbing wife (girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter) on the phone.
A neighbor, it turns out, is different, even a neighbor I hardly knew. For several weeks thereafter, I woke up every night about 3 a.m. thinking, the government came into my neighborhood while I was sleeping and took away a neighbor. Okay, I know he had an old (albeit hardly heinous) crime. Okay, I know it’s the law.
And yet I couldn’t help having a Martin Niemoller thought: I didn’t speak up, I didn’t speak up, I didn’t speak up. Who will speak up for me? Lynne Stewart? If she’s out of prison?
2. Then it was Sirak
During one of those 3 am’s, I also remembered an Ethiopian woman spitting out these words to me after her friend had been removed to Addis Ababa: “You Americans don’t care what’s happening to us. You don’t care because it’s not happening to you. And you won’t care until it does.” I doubt she even knew whose words she was channeling. Her friend, by the way, had never committed any crime; he had simply overstayed his visa. He had spent months and months in immigration detention while the government worked to secure him a travel document.
Sirak, for such was his Old Testament name, told me one day while I was visiting him in jail that another detainee, while exercising in the concrete yard which allowed sight of the sky straight above, but nothing else, had received a magnificent gift. A green leaf, out of nowhere, had blown down in front of him. Sirak said the man gingerly cupped the green leaf and dashed into the dayroom, where he went from table to table, letting everyone admire his treasure. Oh, Sirak said, the need to see something green became overwhelming! Then he let me in on his secret. If, while waiting to be allowed into the visiting room, you stood on your tiptoes and craned your head to the left as far as possible when the door was opened, you could catch a glimpse of a small tree out the lobby window.
When I left the jail that day, I made sure to find that tree, which I passed without noticing twice each visit. I found a scrawny little generic tree, stuck as an afterthought into a patch of cement.
How can you not think of the Gulags? And this is an ordinary county jail, not a Super Max facility bent on minimizing sensory stimulation. We keep overstays here, and asylum seekers, and border-crossers looking for work.
3. Not Quite Parallels
The whiffs of paranoia get stronger.
Jean Hatzfeld has written a book called Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, in which he lets a gang of genocidaires speak, from prison, about how they went out every day to their new job of human butchery. Hatzfeld does not interrupt their voices too often, but when he does, he tries to put the story into some historical perspective. For example, he compares the slaughter of the Hutus with the slaughter of the Jews, Roma, and other undesirables in the Holocaust. He cites Holocaust historians, particularly Raul Hilberg and his Destruction of the European Jews, who divide that event into four phases: humiliation and loss of rights; designation and marking; deportation and concentration; complete elimination. (The Rwandan genocide skipped directly from the first to the last stage).
No, of course I do not believe this country is out to eliminate, as in gas, cut, or starve, illegal immigrants. Of course, I do not believe that a genocide is being planned; my paranoia has not progressed that far. I do, however, believe this country is out to humiliate, designate and mark, deport and concentrate immigrants. I am not even sure this is arguable. Ask Lou Dobbs or Newt Gingrich. Theirs is a proud position.
An Investigations Officer from the Office of Inspector General told me several years ago that the government had planned a detention center in Arizona to house Iraqis, should they have expressed dissent following our invasion to topple Sadaam. He shook his head in wonderment that the government would have come such a short way from the Japanese internment camps.
I have no way to know whether what he told me is correct, but I believe him.
Where is the moral voice, saying how unconscionable are our parallels with the march toward Nazism? How we miss those reverberating tones of Dr. King, excoriating the “appalling silence of the good people” as much as the “hateful words and actions of the bad people.”
4. What can we do?
Besides the obvious. (Sanctuary churches, of course. Sanctuary cities.)
It wouldn’t take much, using perfectly legal means, to bring the system to a standstill. If you’ve ever been to immigration court on a Master Calendar day, you know what I mean. Master Calendars are for scheduling purposes and typically last only a few minutes. But if every person on the docket that day brought a significant number of people, say fifty US citizen volunteers, with them to observe, wordlessly, identification in hand, who didn’t mind, when the courtroom got filled, waiting in the waiting room, still quiet……..the Court would be seriously unnerved. If every person, even if totally without a remedy, were able to find an attorney who would file a Motion to Terminate Proceedings based on, let’s say, several of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Rights. Or the illegitimacy of the Immigration Court, bastard child of the DOJ. Or a combination thereof: Right #8, Right to remedy by competent tribunal. Or ask the judge to recuse her/himself if they were employed first by the Office of District Counsel, which many of them were. And so forth.
Of course, some will recoil in horror. What about the backlash? Well, so what? It can’t get much worse, legally speaking, for most of the people we serve. And this way, at least people will lose knowing they had fought the system in creative ways and helped expose its evils. And advocates could stop feeling powerless before the advancing juggernaut.
5. Unlikely allies?
Six or seven Spanish-speaking detainees are crammed into a small room in the jail, all having their initial Master Calendar hearing together, in front of a judge appearing via video. The deputy supervising them, unused to such an assignment, comes rushing out of the room after only a few minutes. “That’s not right what’s going on in there! That’s not right! They have no idea what’s happening to them!”
I smile sympathetically. “You’re watching due process at work.”
“That is not due process,” he snaps, missing my sarcasm.
The Border Patrol agent, quietly working at a computer processing the detainees he had just delivered to the jail, glanced up as the deputy continued to rail against the Court. “Well,” he mused, “that’s not really a judge in there, you know.”
*********
Originally published in the Guild Practitioner