Immigration detention center in New Jersey: how a “refugee prison” works

ForumDaily offers a translation of Elaine Barros's article for "Voice of America"

The first room in the former warehouse, now used as an isolation facility, is the waiting area. Here visitors register and wait for permission to meet with the detainees.

The security check process is similar to an airport check. Visitors must show the document and hand over things to the storage chamber. Phones can not be taken. Photos can not be done. Write something - too.

“This one is cute. She’s very helpful,” a local volunteer who regularly visits detainees says of the security officer at the window. Above the window is the inscription: “United We Stand«.

An isolator for immigrants in Elizabeth, New Jersey, is located at the end of a dead end road. Here contain about 285 people. The insulator is privately owned; he manages Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the fifth largest correctional company in the USA.

The center is located in an industrial zone surrounded by parking lots, a railroad, a freight station and the New Jersey Turnpike toll road, which plays the role of a wall.

Today's US policy is such that everyone who is seeking asylum is arrested at the point of arrival in the US, regardless of whether they have a valid visa.

The Elizabeth Isolator is located at 15 minutes from Newark-Liberty International Airport, where many international flights arrive.

Name and number

Afternoon at the end of October; about three dozen visitors inside the facility in Elizabeth are waiting to meet with friends or loved ones. All plastic blue chairs are occupied, a queue lined up for registration. Some are waiting outside. Church groups, mothers with children and other visitors come to meetings with detainees. Volunteers from local non-governmental groups come to the detainees every week.

Immigration Rights Group First Friends provided the author of this material with the name and number of the detainee with whom you can talk. This is all the information you need to get inside as a volunteer visitor. The purpose of the visit, according to the organizers First Friends- provide immigrants with the necessary support.

At registration they are asked to show the document. The driver's license issued by the state of Maryland receives a skeptical look from the officer. She carefully examines the document from both sides, but then allows to enter. All visitors pass through a metal detector, take off their shoes and a jacket, and leave pens, note pads, etc. at the entrance. Next - a huge metal prison door, which closes with a jingle behind the visitor.

“I still can’t get used to this sound,” says one of the visitors.

When the doors of an insulator close behind an asylum seeker, it can be for many months. As of September 2017, according to immigration services, more than 38 000 immigrants were imprisoned in 203 centers throughout the country. They leave the walls of the centers after their affairs go through the immigration process: they are either allowed to stay in the United States or deported.

The visiting area is full of round tables and chairs. Detainees should sit facing officers located along the right side of the room. Immigrants await their visitors sitting in chairs at the end of the room.

In the detention facility in Elizabeth, the author of the material met with Faras Khan from Pakistan, who is currently in the process of deportation. His girlfriend also came to him. Under the gaze of an officer from the opposite part of the room, Khan talks about his business and how he feels like an American because he has not lived in Pakistan since the age of one.

Overdue visa

Hana's father sought asylum after having delayed his non-immigrant visa. He claimed that he was being persecuted in Pakistan. At that time, Khan was still a child and received the status of a descendant beneficiary. The father was refused asylum and deported to Pakistan.

But Khan, who is almost 30 and who suffers from bipolar disorder, is struggling to stay. He was arrested for more than 6 months after meeting with immigration authorities.

The 2016 Human Rights Report of the Year says that the average detention period for immigrants in New Jersey institutions whose interests were represented by lawyers Human Rights Firstis 8 months.

After detention

Edafe Okporo spent months in an isolation ward at Elizabeth 5. He was brought here after he asked for political asylum right away at Newark Airport.

“The immigration authorities said they have no shelter for immigrants and arriving aliens, so they will take me to prison,” recalls Okporo.

Okporo is from Nigeria. There he was an activist in support of LGBT rights and public health. But in his country do not recognize the rights of gays, and they themselves are criminalized. In October, 2016, he received an award from the human rights organization in New York, which published his photo and told about his work.

"The local public [in Nigeria - FD] began to demand that I be executed, so I had to escape. I had an American visa, and it was the only document with which I could at least go somewhere, ”says Okporo.

The time spent in custody drove him into a deep depression, says the activist. He says that the rooms in the insulator are not separate. And although there are partitions in the showers and toilets, everyone still sees what others are doing.

“I felt lonely. Very ... I have never been so isolated. You are told what to do and what not to. And they give you food to eat, whether you like it or not, just eat, ”he says.

Anxious waiting

Ignorance of what awaits him, also added anxiety.

“If I lose, I will have to return to my country. If I win, they will release me. Where will I be released? I’m depressed because my family ... they don’t communicate with me because they don’t accept me because of my sexual orientation, ”the guy says.

According to Okporo, he drew strength from volunteer visits, as well as reading and meditation.

“I love to read. Here, my love of reading intensified - I constantly went to the library and chose books for reading, he says. “Despite the fact that my body was imprisoned, it was still free, because I could meditate daily and thus gain control over the mind.”

As a result, Okporo was granted asylum.

Organization American Friends Service Committee, which represents the interests of detainees in a detention center in Elizabeth, reported that from February 2015 to September 2016 provided 80 services to asylum seekers; 40 of them got it. As long as their demands were considered, they remained within the walls of the insulator.

Okporo will be able to apply for a permanent residence permit in a year. But his new life in America has already begun. Via First Friends He found 3 jobs.

“I created a recipe book,” he says with pride, “in which recipes from 40 refugees from around the world are collected.”

Read also on ForumDaily:

Political Asylum in the Trump era

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How to get political asylum in the United States

10 regarding honest ways to stay in the USA (1, 2 mode - lottery, political asylum)

Three stories of our immigrants who were imprisoned in the USA for illegal immigrants

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