By Kassandra Mariscal
March 15,2023
On one of the days of our trip, we went into a detention facility. I felt highly emotional when I saw a bus pull into the gate. It was my first time seeing a bus holding immigrants, and it made me upset because I started thinking about how the individuals on the bus have families who may or may not know where they are, and that they are being herded into a facility and probably have no idea of what is going to happen to them or where they will be going.
Once inside, I saw people in immigration detention. I wanted to read their facial expressions to get a feel for the range of emotions in the room. Some of them were very attentive to the Know Your Rights (KYR) presentation while others were not. Some were very skeptical about what they could actually accomplish from the detention facility. For example, one man asked the question, “How can we provide evidence with our application from here? We were not walking around with our cell phones recording persecution, and we don’t have ways to gather evidence from here.” He made a really good point, and the presenters tried their best to provide an answer by saying that the immigrant’s testimony is evidence that can be presented in the form of a declaration. Overall, I sensed a lot of doubt.
While we were conducting intakes, I noticed that many of the individuals were reluctant to pursue forms of relief due to the time it would take to adjudicate or file the applications. They just wanted to get out of the detention facility even if that meant removal. I saw this in immigration court the next day, too. It was sad to see individuals forgo a form of relief just for the opportunity to be released.
