The Sweet Sound of...Justice?

by Michael
It sounds like music when you first walk in, like windchimes. Then you see the chains wrapped around the people in jumpsuits. The headphones around their necks -- meant to help them understand what is going on, in their native language -- remind you of muzzles, or choke collars. It’s overwhelming. I knew that court would hurt, but I didn’t expect to be affected this much.
As part of our immersion trip, we got the opportunity on Tuesday to see what district court is like.  To be honest, I was excited: I had never been to court before, and I wanted to see that side of the immigration process. We had to be up grossly early because it was about a 40 minute drive to Las Cruces and court was at 8:30. So the morning started out pretty normally: not wanting to wake up, rushing to get dressed and eat breakfast, and then piling into the van to head to Las Cruces.

It was actually a very peaceful drive with the sun rising over the mountains and everyone off in their own, silent little world. We were even making jokes throughout our wait for court to start and as we walked up to the courtroom doors. But walking in took our laughter away immediately. All you saw was row after row of handcuffed inmates; there were four completely full rows in total. As we walked in and were sitting on the back bench, I saw some of them turn back towards us, as if to say “Oh great, more people get to see me in handcuffs.” I can only imagine how uncomfortable they must have been.

I kept a count of the cases we saw, in the order that we saw them, and I made note (as much as I could, but I definitely missed some) of when someone was born in the 1990s:
1 meth charge
6 entering the US without inspection
6 entering without inspection
6 entering without inspection
5 entering without inspection
7 criminal reentry after removal (a felony)
7 criminal reentry after removal
2 violations of supervised release
1 “alien” transportation charge
1 meth charge
1 meth charge
7 for tolling of grand jury presentment
3 for tolling of grand jury presentment
10 for entering without inspection (pled guilty)
1 meth charge
25 reentry after removal (pled guilty)
1 drug trafficking charge (meth mixture) (pled guilty)
1 child exploitation charge
1 entering without inspection



3 born in 1990
4 born in 1991
3 born in 1992
2 born in 1993
2 born in 1994
2 born in 1995
3 born in 1996
1 born in 1997
5 born in 1998
1 born in 1999

It’s troubling, because I want to keep a record of what I saw but information beyond birth year and crime could endanger and expose the people that we saw. Even keeping count of what happened is dehumanizing to those that we saw. They aren’t individual names or faces or even people anymore: they’re a number, a statistic. But it was also important to me to keep this record.

From my count though, about 79% of the cases that we saw were immigration based. Only the people charged with an immigration offense were called up in groups, usually of 6. To most every question you heard a chorus of “Si, senor” or “No, senor,” one by one, over and over and over. There was even a group of 3 siblings, all being processed for entering without inspection (entering between official border crossing & inspection points). It was mentioned though that the two dockets of cases that we saw were unusually full, which is both reassuring and infuriating. They don’t get to be seen as individual people this way; when they stated their names and dates of birth, we quickly forgot them. They were just “the group of border-crossers.”

Funnily enough (if you can even describe it as such), really the only violent crime that we heard about today was the child exploitation case, committed by a United States citizen. And while we had barely any information on the people being processed for immigration crimes (besides criminal history), we all knew the things that made the exploitation inmate an “upstanding citizen.” And as Shelly pointed out, the chains of the inmate in that case were noticeably looser than those of the other inmates.  

Afterwards, we were able to talk to the judge that had been presiding. One of the facts that troubled me greatly while we were talking to him was when he was explaining about people who are deported to their home country. When it’s somewhere other than Mexico, the people being deported have to wait in the detention centers until enough people are gathered that will be deported to that same country. Enough to fill a 727, I believe the judge said.

It makes my blood boil: not only are these people being criminalized and treated like trash for trying to come here -- likely for a better life or better opportunities -- they’re stuck in limbo for weeks or even months in detention centers because the government wants to save on time and effort. They’re not wanted and yet forced to remain -- in jail essentially -- knowing all the while that they will soon be forced back into the difficulties they were trying to escape. But hey, at least justice was served...