Yesterday was a physically and emotionally draining day for me and my spouse. I am still trying to process everything I felt, heard, saw, smelled, so forgive me if this post is a bit rambling.
First of all, we arrived at Delaney Hall, the immigration detention center in Newark, at around 8:30 a.m. It is next to the Essex County jail in an industrial park area on a 4 lane road with lots of truck traffic, trash strewn everywhere and no shade on a hot and sunny 90 degree (32 degrees Celsius) day. Just down the road from the facility is a sewage treatment plant, so when the wind was wafting from there in our direction, the smell was pungent.
As part of the Cooper River Indivisible immigration committee, we made the trip to bear witness, communicate in Spanish to those with little or no English and to offer water, snacks, flyers with helpful information for immigrants and moral support to the families and friends of detainees seeking to visit their loved ones and trying to make sense of what is happening to them.
Almost everyone we met was Latino. We met parents, wives, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, cousins and friends. What we learned from almost all of them was that their loved ones were going to a scheduled ICE check in or an immigration court appointment and were arrested. None of them had any criminal record. They were all trying to do the right thing. What this is doing is creating a scenario where people will not go to their appointments for fear of being arrested and then if they are found, they will be arrested for not going to their appointments. They can’t win either way.
The times and days for visiting hours are constantly changing. Currently they are only open for visiting on the weekend and holidays. The visiting hours are also different for each of the four units within the facility and the times for each unit also change for each day. A family who came to see their loved one on Saturday night was told to come back on Sunday morning. When they arrived, they were told that it wasn’t the right time and they had to leave. Visitors are told to arrive 40 minutes before visiting hours start and to line up outside of the gate (in the hot sun with no shade), but they were only letting in 15 people/families and anyone after that was out of luck and would have to come back and try again, which would mean next weekend, but because they are also moving people out of this facility at any given time (we heard that some people were being moved to Florida or Texas), no one knows if their loved ones will still be there by the next visiting hours. Where and when the visitors are supposed to find this information is also an issue. If you go ICE.gov and look up Delaney Hall visiting hours, it says 7 days a week; 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Simply not true!
One family member we met is also a police sergeant. He told us that ICE is picking up people who have standard licenses for undocumented citizens. New Jersey allows undocumented immigrants to obtain a standard driver’s license. In 2019, New Jersey passed a law allowing residents, regardless of immigration status, to apply for a standard driver’s license. This law took effect on May 1, 2021.
A few of the visitors came out of the facility after they were let in because they were wearing open toed shoes (it is summer after all!) which are not allowed apparently. Luckily, some of the volunteers who have been doing this for a while had bins of shoes of all different sizes to lend so that they didn’t have to miss their visit.
People can not bring anything for their loved ones. A daughter wanted to bring her father’s glasses, but since she would not be allowed to carry them in, she wore them, pretending they were hers and she was going to lay them on the table for her father to pick them up. Someone wanted to drop off a bible and two other books for his cousin, but they wouldn’t let him.
We met a woman from Venezuela who is undocumented, but seeking asylum in the U.S. Since she doesn’t have papers, she could not go in to visit her brother, but her friend was there to visit him. As she sat with us, she told us that her brother waited in Mexico for two months to cross the border as an asylum seeker. When I asked her how he’s doing, she told me that he’s in a room with 10 people and that they are all sick. She thinks he may have COVID, but they will not test him. A doctor comes once a day to give him medicine that he must take in the doctor’s presence.
As the day went on, more volunteers came to help out, offering water, Gatorade, food, sunscreen, support and Spanish speakers offering their help to those who don’t speak English. These people are some of the best of humanity. Some drivers passing by offered their support by giving us a thumbs up, a honk or a heart sign. Unfortunately, some were not so supportive like the old man in the pick-up truck who stopped his car in front of us and yelled “All spics go home” while giving us the finger or the man who drove by screaming “Fuck you, send them all back”. In the end, I would like to think that the best of humanity will come out on top, but to be honest, I don’t know what is going to happen. Everything is happening at warp speed right now and we need to keep fighting for justice.