A Promise of Shared Humanity- An Account from the Border

South Texas Family Residential Center, Dilley, TX

As she recounted the years of abuse, the miscarriages and pre-term births due to physical trauma, the migraines caused by the intentional beatings to her head and the rapes she experienced in front of her toddler son, all at the hands of her husband, I sat with my client at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas desperately wanting to hold her hand. I wanted to show her that despite all that she has experienced in Mexico, en route to the United States and at the border, that there was still hope for her. But I was not allowed to touch her or give her a hug. My heart ached for her and her toddler son.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered with Immigration Justice Campaign’s Dilley Pro Bono Project (DPBP) in Dilley, Texas in collaboration with members from the South Asian Bar Association of North America (SABA) and the South Asian Bar Association of North America Foundation (SABA Foundation) for a week. With the encouragement and financial support of the Pro Bono Committee of my company MassMutual, and the SABA Foundation, I arrived in Dilley, TX vastly unprepared for this emotional and life-altering experience. DPBP is a group of dedicated immigration lawyers, paralegals and other professionals who run a non-traditional pro bono project of legal services that directly represents immigrant mothers and children. Volunteers sign up for one-week shifts to help carry the immense caseload and rising demand for legal services at Dilley.

While the media has exposed the plight of immigrants in these detention centers, nothing can prepare you for experiencing it first-hand. The South Texas Family Residential Center is in effect a jail, a prison to house up to 2,400 women and children who are in expedited removal proceedings with orders signed by Customs & Border Protection. It is the largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the United States run by CoreCivic, the second-largest private corrections company in the country. The facility spans fifty acres with a series of trailers and cottages that house detainees and provide food, medical and recreation services.

After hours of training, we arrived at the detention facility on Monday morning. We were assigned our cases to prepare women and their children for their credible fear interviews (CFIs). These CFIs would be the first official determinations of whether the women and children could stay in the United States to pursue their legal claims based on asylum, withholding of removal or the Convention Against Torture protection. With a positive determination, a detainee could leave the jail and apply for asylum or another form of legal relief from the comfort of their sponsor’s home. A negative CFI would resume the deportation process.

For the next four days, working with an incredible Spanish translator and immigration lawyer herself, we counseled several women and their children on their cases. Our task during interview preparation was to synthesize and package why these women came to the United States into successful legal claims. Thankfully because this particular client was from Mexico, the Third-Country Transit Bar that effectively bans asylum for the vast majority of refugees seeking protection at the U.S. southern border, did not apply to her. Thus, my client bore the burden of proving credible fear, a lesser standard: a significant possibility of persecution in her country of origin. In addition to satisfying the other elements of asylum, an immigrant domestic violence survivor must prove the inability to leave her persecutor; physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse; forced labor; deprivation of liberty; and police unwillingness or inability to protect her. During the week, we spent hours living our client’s story, seeking details that would bolster and strengthen her and her son’s legal claims.

As my client went through the horrific details of her abuse, I tried to communicate non-verbally with her in other ways. While I was unable to provide her any physical comfort, I knew that my belief that she had a strong asylum claim lifted her spirits. And as I looked at her through teary eyes when we said our goodbyes, a single tear made its way down her face. I realized in that moment that even though we could not show any physical affection to one another, we were bound by something much larger and sacred than any law, barrier, rule, policy and language: our shared humanity. I left Dilley comforted by that promise.