While I have researched the amount of money Geo Group makes off of the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), the food poisoning in the NWDC and other documents. I don't think I grasped the full situation until I attended hearings in immigration court.
When I first arrived, it was at the tail end of hearing where a detainee just received his voluntary deportation. He was ordered to be deported from the country within a week. I was kind of shocked. That is a big leap backwards for him. My shock wore off though and turned to dismay as detainee after detainee was given the "privalege" of voluntary deportation. The judge would grind them through an interrogation of questions. Did you enter the U.S. without inspection? Have you been arrested? If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then the detainee is going back to the country he came from. Whether that be Guatemala, Mexico, Tonga or any other place on earth.
Out of the probably 20 hearings I witnessed today, only one had an attorney present defending him. His claim? He has a wife, three children, a job and a life here in the states. He has been in the NWDC for two years. Another man similar to his case did not have an attorney, but did have a fiance, a child and another family member present fighting for him to stay. The fiance told the judge that he provided for her and their child. Walking out with at the end of the day, his child wept as his case was not progressed, because he had a conviction of forging a green card.
As he left the court room, he looked over trying to get a glance of his fiance. She didn't know he was looking at her until he was out the door and then she looked for him. The simple pleasure of eye contact was denied.
Immigrants asked for the voluntary deportation at times and were thankful for it. Partly because it means that they can come back. I wonder how much of that voluntary deportation option is a way for them just to get out of the detention center.
I wonder what it would be like to be away from your family for so long.
