Illegal Encounters

The Effect of Detention and Deportation on Young People

Deborah A. Boehm, Susan J. Terrio

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781479805914
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The impact of the U.S. immigration and legal systems on children and youth In the United States, millions of children are undocumented migrants or have family members who came to the country without authorization. The unique challenges with which these children and youth must cope demand special attention. Illegal Encounters considers illegality, deportability, and deportation in the lives of young people—those who migrate as well as those who are affected by the migration of others. A primary focus of the volume is to understand how children and youth encounter, move through, or are outside of a range of legal processes, including border enforcement, immigration detention, federal custody, courts, and state processes of categorization. Even if young people do not directly interact with state immigration systems—because they are U.S. citizens or have avoided detention—they are nonetheless deeply affected by the reach of the government in its many forms. Contributors privilege the voices and everyday experiences of immigrant children and youth themselves. By combining different perspectives from advocates, service providers, attorneys, researchers, and young immigrants, the volume presents rich accounts that can contribute to informed debates and policy reforms. Illegal Encounters sheds light on the unique ways in which policies, laws, and legal categories shape so much of daily life for young immigrants. The book makes visible the burdens, hopes, and potential of a population of young people and their families who have been largely hidden from public view and are currently under siege, following their movement through complicated immigration systems and institutions in the United States.

Part I

In

Confronting Enforcement, Detention, and Deportation

In this part, authors consider the systems that young people enter as immigrants—systems through which the state controls, apprehends, detains, and deports foreign nationals—but also the way that young people enter or are in systems even when not obviously so. Looking at cases at the border and in the nation’s interior, the pieces show the particular effects of border controls, legal systems, and categories of “illegality” more generally on young people. Young people may enter into, become caught within, or find themselves firmly situated in immigration and criminal justice systems that can result in deportation and being forced outside of the country.

Paradoxically, children and youth are likely to be rooted in the nation even if not recognized as members of it; enter into systems and institutional procedures even if not formally so; are subject to US immigration laws and policies even if not directly; and might need to navigate government bureaucracies even if outside of or on the margins of the nation. As the contributors in this part show us, young people are in systems that construct and monitor “illegality” as they cross the border (De León); enter into and are then defined by the criminal justice system in the United States and may be deported as a result (Hansen); go into federal custody and immigration detention (Guevara Martínez); are caught within overlapping systems (Ortiz-Rosales and Jackson); and find themselves governed by immigration laws and practices whether or not they formally interact with government agencies (Dreby). Indeed, the reach of the state places far more individuals in immigration regimes than those who are actually immigrants themselves.

In chapter 1—which aptly opens part I—Jason De León uncovers the coercive intent behind the federal border control policy known as Prevention Through Deterrence. As a result, migrants are pushed into remote desert and mountainous areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions. This policy has failed to deter border crossers while successfully turning the rugged terrain of southern Arizona into a killing field. Apprehensions while trying to cross the border are among the most violent ways young people find themselves placed in US immigration systems and deportation regimes. The border zone is a liminal space where migrants are positioned both inside and outside the nation. If they lose their way, are abandoned by smugglers, or are weakened by hyperthermia, their only hope may be rescue by Border Patrol and, ultimately, expulsion. Too often this brief incursion into a hostile landscape ends in death, the erasure of bodily remains, and the impossibility of migration to the United States or return to one’s homeland. The threatening space of the US-Mexico border that De León describes poses particular threats to children and youth who are attempting to cross, especially when doing so without adult family members. Guides and smugglers typically facilitate the movement of young people, or—which is equally dangerous—children increasingly attempt to cross alone or with groups of other young people. As children and youth are apprehended trying to enter the United States, they also enter a complicated system of immigration enforcement and detention.

In chapter 2, Tobin Hansen centers on migrants who were brought to the United States as children and who grew up in the country. Over time, children become embedded within US communities, developing personal histories and social bonds as they reach adulthood. However, many of the young men Hansen interviewed found themselves caught up in criminal and immigration enforcement systems that are difficult to exit. As undocumented youth, they may be labeled as “criminal aliens,” a racialized practice that confines and expels young people despite their strong connections to families, communities, and the nation. Focusing on memories of apprehension, detention, and “removal” or deportation among men in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, the chapter demonstrates how, over time, multiple structures of social, economic, and political marginalization in the United States result in the expulsion of Mexican nationals who identify as US social citizens.

Dreby’s chapter complements Hansen’s focus on the powerlessness of deported Mexican men by examining the relative experiences of power among Mexican girls with different immigration and citizenship statuses who live in transnational families, some in Mexico and others in the United States. Dreby shows how all members of families may find themselves in legal systems: migrant children are affected, but so too are nonmigrants, both those whose parents migrate without them and those born to migrant parents in host countries. The specter of illegality within a family changes children’s roles and concrete responsibilities, as well as their feelings related to these changes. Dreby’s focus on mixed-status families examines the ongoing challenges children face when they enter the state’s system of categorization—directly or indirectly—as some siblings are marked as “illegal” while others stay in Mexico or are US citizens. Dreby shows the impacts that regimes of illegality have on families and especially on children and youth.

The piece written by José Ortiz-Rosales and Kristen Jackson illustrates how as young migrants enter the United States, they also enter a complex landscape that may include legal, educational, child welfare, and health care systems. Youth can be in systems and yet outside of social communities and on the margins. These systems intersect, overlap, or diverge depending on the circumstances that bring young people to the United States, as well as their family networks, access to legal representation, the availability of health care services, and their educational environment, among other factors. Focusing on the experiences of three young people, Ortiz-Rosales and Jackson show how different factors converge to create a range of outcomes that may or may not serve the child’s interests. The authors underscore the fact that legal status—while a potentially powerful step in changing one’s circumstances in the United States—is not necessarily sufficient for ensuring security for children and youth. They advocate powerfully for an intersectional approach that can better serve young people as they move into, but also through and out of, intersecting systems.

In the final piece in this part, we hear directly from a young man, Williams Guevara Martínez, who recounts his motivation for leaving his home in El Salvador, his journey to the United States, and his experiences in federal custody and after release. He charts his personal attachments, educational opportunities, work experience, and commitment to build a productive life in the United States and to help others like himself. Guevara Martínez left El Salvador in search of safety, but he was soon placed in a complex detention system that included a new set of violations and insecurities. Migration north can entangle youth in detention and other legal regimes that shape their lives even after they have been held in federal custody for a relatively short period. Now having graduated from high school and gained US legal permanent residency, Guevara Martínez looks back to explain the challenges of youth who enter the country alone and without authorization, those who find themselves in systems that have an immediate impact but also unanticipated effects after release.

1

Risky Border Crossings

Jason De León

On April 3, 2013, fifteen-year-old José left Cuenca, Ecuador with two cousins, thirteen-year-old Felipe and nineteen-year-old Manny.1 Their trip lasted several months but was relatively uneventful. After leaving Guayaquil by plane, the three of them crossed multiple borders by car and bus. After less than two weeks of travel they arrived in Mexico. Once in Mexico City, the cousins were sent to different safe houses where they then spent forty-five days waiting for transport to Nogales.2 Unable to leave their houses, they tried to keep themselves busy. They mostly watched TV and paced around a small courtyard. The house where José was kept had Internet, and he was able to periodically log on to Facebook when his smuggler let him (for a fee of course).

Finally, after a month and a half of being cooped up indoors, José’s cousins were loaded into the luggage compartment of a passenger bus, given a bucket to urinate in, and told not to make any noise. For two cramped days Manny and Felipe laid quietly under the bus while dozens of unknowing passengers sitting above them snoozed, read magazines, and stared out their windows at the northern Mexican countryside. Although the details of how José got to Nogales are currently vague, it was likely a trip similar to what his cousins experienced. When they finally reached the border, the three boys were reunited and taken to a safe house where they waited, along with dozens of other migrants, for their guide to tell them when it was time to try their luck. Ten days after arriving in Nogales, a car showed up one night and drove them to the edge of the desert.

Felipe: We left the house in Nogales at night and were dropped off underneath a puente [bridge or overpass]. It only took like twenty minutes in the car to get from the house to the puente. Everyone was carrying a black backpack and their one bottle of water. A gallon of water. Some bottles were white and some were painted black. . . . José was wearing black Air Jordans with black pants, a black sweatshirt, a black shirt, and black hat with red letters on it. Everyone had black clothes on.

Manny: José had a rosary, a prayer card, and a chain with an owl on it that his girlfriend gave him. He was wearing a belt that had phone numbers written on it. It had his dad’s cell phone and house numbers. He had no identification.

Felipe: We crossed a fence and then started walking. We were traveling with two guides. There were around forty people in our group. One of the guides was named Scooby. I don’t remember the other one’s name. . . . We climbed a hill and at the bottom we crossed another fence. When we climbed the first hill we could see the city of Nogales, and then it disappeared. We walked all night and then rested near a rancho around 4 or 5 a.m. We slept in an abandoned house there. In the morning we started walking again.

Manny: We left from the puente. We walked a little bit and then climbed a mountain. After the mountain it got flat, and then there was a road with a house on it. After we crossed the road, there was nothing, just mountains and mountains. We walked past a tall mountain that had two blinking antennas on it. They had red blinking lights. The guides called it la Montaña de Cerdo [Pig Mountain].

Felipe: Our group separated that next day. Me, José, and Manny stayed together with Scooby. . . . We would climb a hill and Scooby would be waiting at the top for people. On the second day of walking we got to the start of the hill at about 6 a.m. and rested. José’s shoes were starting to fall apart. The soles were coming unglued. José kept stopping to sit and drink water. We were giving him water so he could keep going. We then climbed a hill and dropped down to a flat area where there wasn’t any shade or trees. It was impossible to hide there.

Manny: We had rested at the bottom of a hill for ten minutes when my cousin José started to sleep. He didn’t want to get up. Every time we stopped to rest, he would try to sleep. The guide would say, “We are going to rest and catch your breath and then we are going to start walking again. Don’t sleep.” Well, José started to sleep. It was the heat. The heat will get you. It robs you of energy. We really didn’t have much to drink. José had water in his backpack, but he needed more. He started to drink a lot of water. He was just getting thirstier and thirstier. We had brought sueros [electrolyte solution] and gave them to him. He finished everything. He couldn’t control himself.

Felipe: He stopped walking around 7 a.m. He couldn’t go on. José fell down and Scooby started kicking him. Scooby was saying, “Get up or I am going to keep kicking you.” José’s leg gave out, and he just slumped down on the ground. He said that he’d had enough. Scooby was yelling, “You need to get up or I’m going to beat you.” José was sitting on the ground looking dazed [makes woozy head movements], and Scooby just kept kicking him. He tried to get up but fell with all his weight. He was falling on bushes and the branches were breaking. He fell three times and the last time he couldn’t get up. He was very sleepy and his eyes were half open. We were all kind of like that but José also had the flu. When we left Nogales he was sick. He said he was going to turn himself in. He told me, “I can’t go on, but you should.”

Manny: His feet wouldn’t let him go anymore. He was on the ground and said, “I am going to turn myself in.” Immigration was all around at this point. Where we left him there was Border Patrol everywhere.

Felipe: There were helicopters around because, the day before, they were catching a lot of people in our group. We told José we were going to keep going, and we left him sitting at the bottom of the hill. He was in a spot where there was no place to hide, no trees or anything. José had food and a little bottle of water that I gave him. We walked to the next hill where Scooby was waiting. That was the last time we saw him.

A day and half after leaving José behind, the cousins and their guide were spotted by Border Patrol and chased into the mountains. It was at this point that Scooby abandoned them. They were now alone, lost, and out of food and water. To compound issues, thirteen-year-old Felipe was dehydrated to the point that he began coughing up blood. At daybreak they started walking until they stumbled upon a lagoon and were able to fill their bottles with murky liquid. That morning they somehow found their way to Arivaca Road, where they were quickly picked up by Border Patrol. As the crow flies, they had walked almost thirty miles through multiple mountain ranges.

When they finally spoke to their families from federal detention days later, Manny and Felipe reported that José had stayed behind. Despite the fact that they left him in an area with heavy Border Patrol presence, José never turned himself in. At the end of our first interview Manny remarked to me, “I don’t know why he didn’t turn himself in at that moment. Maybe he kept walking. I’m not sure what happened.”

Prevention through Deterrence

In July 1993, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) promoted Mexican American Border Patrol agent Silvestre Reyes to chief of the El Paso Sector. Reyes was brought in during a moment of crisis when a series of lawsuits and claims of human rights violations had been brought against the Border Patrol in the region. Two of the major grievances lodged against the agency were that legal Latino residents were subjected to unfair racial profiling and harassment, and that the consistent pursuit of undocumented border crossers through neighborhoods was a dangerous and abusive practice.3 The majority of El Paso residents who lived along the border were Latino, which made it difficult for la migra to figure out who was “illegal” without directly interrogating people. Locals were tired of law enforcement questioning them about their citizenship while they were going about their daily business. In response to these complaints, Reyes came up with a radical new enforcement strategy that would fundamentally change how the border was policed. Timothy Dunn describes what happened on September 19, 1993, when Reyes launched Operation Blockade:

The emphasis of the operation was to deter unauthorized border crossings in the core urban area between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso by making a bristling show of force. . . . This took the form of posting 400 Border Patrol agents (out of 650 total in the sector) on the banks of the Rio Grande and adjacent levees in stationary, ubiquitous green and green and white patrol vehicles around the clock, at short distance intervals (from fifty yards to one-half mile) along a twenty-mile stretch between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. This mass posting of agents created an imposing line, if not [a] virtual wall, of agents along the river, which was supplemented by low-flying and frequently deployed surveillance helicopters.4

Prior to this strategy, the standard operating procedure had been to try to apprehend border crossers after they had crossed the boundary line. The circus-like atmosphere created when dozens of people at a time jumped the border fence while agents in green uniforms chased after them like Keystone Cops was ludicrous. Comedian Cheech Marin even built his film Born in East L.A. around ...