[Oe List ...] "When I am found dead..."

[Del Morrill]

Latest Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Report)

 


Weekend Read // Issue 62

At the foot of the bridge over the Rio Grande, Laura turned to the Border
Patrol agent. "When I am found dead," she said, "it will be on your
conscience."

Hours earlier, a police officer had stopped Laura on her way home from work
in a car with her cousin Elizabeth. She had no license, no registration -
and no visa to be in the United States.

"I can't be sent back to Mexico," Laura told Officer Nazario Solis III
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2fmagazine%2f2018%2f01%2f15%2fwhen-deportation-is-a-death-sentence&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173> . "I have a protection order against my ex - please,
just let me call my mom and she'll bring you the paperwork."

Elizabeth tried to tell the officer about Laura's ex-husband, Sergio, who
had continued to text her even after he was deported to Mexico. He promised
he would set Laura on fire if she ever returned.

"You can't do this," Elizabeth told Solis
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2fmagazine%2f2018%2f01%2f15%2fwhen-deportation-is-a-death-sentence&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173> . "He'll kill her."

It was too late. Officer Solis had already called Border Patrol, setting in
motion a chain of events that would make Laura one of an untold number of
undocumented immigrants whom federal agents have deported to their deaths.

Sarah Stillman interviewed Laura's family
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2fmagazine%2f2018%2f01%2f15%2fwhen-deportation-is-a-death-sentence&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173>  as part of a Columbia University project to record what
happens to people once they're deported - something no U.S. government body
monitors.

As Stillman's database grew, she wrote in
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2fmagazine%2f2018%2f01%2f15%2fwhen-deportation-is-a-death-sentence&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173> The New Yorker this week, it became clear that many
deportees had warned U.S. officials that they would be in danger if they
were sent back - like Laura did - only to have their pleas fall on deaf
ears.

That is not what is supposed to happen. As Stillman told NPR's Ari Shapiro
this week
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.npr.org%2f
2018%2f01%2f09%2f576858224%2fhow-one-group-is-tracking-violence-experienced-
after-deportation&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&
trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173> ,

What's supposed to happen - both before international law that we have all
agreed to through the United Nations, and through protocols that we came up
with after World War II - is that people who present themselves to Border
Patrol with claims that they may be killed or harmed if they are sent back
to their home countries are supposed to get a shot before an asylum officer,
and, if their claims are deemed credible, before an immigration judge.

But our immigration laws have changed quite a bit since 1996, when it was
made possible to very instantaneously deport people right back across the
border, sometimes without giving them a chance to really make their claims,
and certainly without a chance to ever be heard by an immigration judge.

An ACLU report
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.aclu.org%2
fblog%2fhuman-rights%2fharrowing-tales-wrongly-deported-how-border-patrol-of
ficers-flout-law-and-destroy&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=1
4738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  in 2014 found that of
those deported without seeing a judge, "55 percent were not asked about fear
of persecution or torture." Another "40 percent who were asked and said they
were afraid were ordered deported without seeing an asylum officer."

ACLU's findings are consistent with what the bipartisan U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.uscirf.gov%
2fnews-room%2fpress-releases%2fserious-flaws-in-us-treatment-asylum-seekers-
in-expedited-removal-children&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=
14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  has been reporting
for years. Under President Trump, the situation appears to be getting worse,
not better.

"The United States is not giving asylum anymore," Border Patrol agents have
told prospective asylum seekers, according to a recent Human Rights First
report
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.humanrights
first.org%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2fhrf-crossing-the-line-report.pdf&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173> . "Trump says we don't have to let you in."

Stillman says her team talked to
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2fmagazine%2f2018%2f01%2f15%2fwhen-deportation-is-a-death-sentence&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173> "more than a dozen women who say that they were never
asked the required questions, or were ignored, mocked, or even sexually
propositioned by U.S. agents after expressing their fears - and then
deported to harm."

That's what happened to Laura, whose body was delivered to her mother just
one week after she was deported to Mexico. She had been strangled, doused in
gasoline and set on fire. Sergio confessed to her murder.

Since 2008, the United Nations reports that asylum seekers from El Salvador,
Honduras and Guatemala have increased fivefold
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.unhcr.org%2
f5630f24c6.pdf&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&tri
d=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173> , but this week the Trump
administration announced that it is ending temporary protected status
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washington
post.com%2flocal%2fimmigration%2fi-consider-this-my-country-salvadorans-in-u
s-brace-for-tps-decision%2f2018%2f01%2f07%2f77914402-f19e-11e7-b3bf-ab90a706
e175_story.html%3futm_term%3d.1e54f8e8d9e0&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=20090
7007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  for
200,000 people from El Salvador.

"I don't want to take my daughter, none of my kids, to a violent
environment," Christian Chavez Guevara, who has lived in the U.S. with
temporary protected status for 17 years, told
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.salon.com%
2f2018%2f01%2f09%2fwith-salvador-decision-trumps-immigration-policy-veers-in
to-white-nationalism%2f&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=147385
64757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173> Salon's Amanda Marcotte.

But now, many may have to. That's one reason we're providing pro bono legal
representation
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.splcenter.
org%2four-issues%2fimmigrant-justice%2fsoutheast-immigrant-freedom-initiativ
e-en&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba
-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  for detained immigrants at three detention
centers in the Southeast. We know that for many of them, removal proceedings
are a matter of life or death
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.splcenter.
org%2fnews%2f2017%2f10%2f03%2fsplc-wins-asylum-transgender-woman-who-receive
d-death-threats-guatemala&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=1473
8564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173> .

Before Laura's deportation, she had been planning a party for her 23rd
birthday. Her family honored the invitations and used the date for her
funeral instead. Laura's mother, who now raises Laura's three sons, told
Stillman that the oldest has asked twice when she is coming back
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2fmagazine%2f2018%2f01%2f15%2fwhen-deportation-is-a-death-sentence&srcid
=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41
-b05c-0662c4e82173> .

"Remember where we left her?" she says she explained. "We left her on the
other side of the border."

The Editors

P.S. Here are some other pieces that we think are valuable this week:

It's not just freezing classrooms in Baltimore. America's schools are
physically falling apart.
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.motherjones
.com%2fpolitics%2f2018%2f01%2fits-not-just-freezing-classrooms-in-baltimore-
americas-schools-are-physically-falling-apart%2f&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid
=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>
by Edwin Rios for Mother Jones

The neo-Nazis of the Daily Stormer wander the digital wilderness
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.newyorker.
com%2ftech%2felements%2fthe-neo-nazis-of-the-daily-stormer-wander-the-digita
l-wilderness&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=
c7fd95ba-3e82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  by Talia Levin for The New Yorker

Jeff Sessions has endorsed an unconstitutional fine on the poor
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washington
post.com%2fopinions%2fjeff-sessions-just-endorsed-an-unconstitutional-fine-o
n-the-poor%2f2018%2f01%2f09%2f87ccffc6-f268-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.htm
l&srcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e
82-4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  by Lisa Foster for The Washington Post

Who's going to believe us? Native Americans say they're targets of shootings
and jailhouse rapes by white law enforcement.
<https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.buzzfeed.c
om%2fjohnstanton%2ffrom-gunshots-to-alleged-rapes-a-toxic-legacy-of-police&s
rcid=1003260&srctid=1&erid=200907007&efndnum=14738564757&trid=c7fd95ba-3e82-
4a41-b05c-0662c4e82173>  by John Stanton for BuzzFeed News

 

Best always,

Del

 

Life is full of promises or disappointments depending upon what you expect
of it and how you wish to respond.

 

	

 

 

 

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