The appalling treatment of a trans asylum seeker in US detention

By Paul Canning

The appalling treatment of a transgender asylum seeker held in US detention has drawn a lawsuit from the ACLU.

The suit is against the federal government, local government and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and charges that they failed to protect Tanya Guzman-Martinez from sexual violence, assault and other mistreatment.

Guzman-Martinez was being held at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. She was sexually assaulted by a guard who threatened to deport her back to Mexico if she did not comply with his demands. Pinal County court records show that the guard was charged with 'attempted unlawful sexual contact' but was only sentenced to two days, with time served.

After the sexual assault, she was placed back in a male population rather than in a woman's cell and suffered further abuse including another sexual assault.

The accusations, according to the ACLU court papers, include that "on one occasion, a detention officer told other detainees that they could “have her” if they gave him three soup packets."

Alessandra Soler Meetze of the ACLU of Arizona said:

“They did nothing. They failed to protect her from abusive staff members. They failed to protect her from male detainees."

ACLU of Arizona Immigrant Rights Attorney, Victoria Lopez, said:

“Tanya left Mexico to seek refuge from the persecution she suffered because of her gender identity, and was exposed to even greater trauma at the hands of  immigration officials who failed to take appropriate measures to protect her while she was in their custody.”

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Arizona,Amber Cargile, told Fronteras Desk:

"While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not comment on pending litigation, the agency is firmly committed to providing for the welfare and humane treatment of all those in its custody. ICE is currently in the process of implementing comprehensive reforms to the agency’s detention system. The reforms are designed to prioritize the health and safety of detainees in ICE’s custody, while increasing federal oversight and improving the conditions of confinement within the detention system. ICE is focused on sensible, sustainable reforms that are attentive to the unique needs of the individuals in our custody.”

Although Guzman-Martinez was released from detention more than a year-and-a-half ago, she still suffers from the emotional pain she endured while at Eloy.

The US has come in for consistent criticism over persistent sexual abuse in immigration detention centers and its refusal to extend the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) to those in immigration detention. The ACLU has gathered more than 185 reports of sexual abuse in immigrant detention facilities across America, which they say represents a small proportion of cases.

ACLU of Arizona cooperating attorney Kirstin Story, of the law firm of Lewis and Roca LLP, said:

“When we tout our country as a beacon of freedom, fairness, and individual liberties for all, the United States, as well as state and local governments, and the people and entities with whom they routinely contract, must live up to those values, especially for those people who seek refuge in this country because of those values. Unfortunately, that did not occur in the Tanya Guzman-Martinez case and in many others. We hope that this lawsuit is a step toward remedying these failures.”

The ACLU-AZ report "In Their Own Words: Enduring Abuse in Arizona Immigration Detention Centers," details further maltreatment of other LGBT detainees.

ACLU Guzman - Complaint

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In US, failed quick deportation program quietly shelved

Image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

An American immigration program which quickly deports undocumented immigrants from states like Arizona has been quietly shelved.

‘Stipulated removal’ removed thousands of people but because of flaws in how it was carried out, disregarding people’s rights, the program has effectively ended.  Ninety-six percent of those removed under the program did not have a lawyer,; the program was stopped for those without counsel.  Immigration officials have not deported a single illegal immigrant through the program in Arizona in over a year, Vincent Picard, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Phoenix told the Arizona Republic.

In September 2010 a federal appellate court ruled that the rights of an immigrant held in the Eloy detention center in Arizona were violated. After that, speedy removals were offered only to illegal immigrants with lawyers who could help them fight their cases.

With ‘Stipulated removal’, an immigrant gives up the right to a hearing and the right to an appeal. It is supposed to save time and money.

But a report released in September by the National Immigration Law Center accused officials of pressuring for quick deportation by threatening long detention stays and failing to provide adequate interpretation and translation.

Most – 80 percent – of those deported through the program hadn’t committed crimes.

“DHS agents administering the program provided legally inaccurate portrayals of the opportunities to remain in the United States in order to boost deportation numbers, even though judges and others involved in the program voiced their concerns about how the program short-circuited individuals’ rights,” the report says.

In one of the documents the report’s authors obtained through an FOI request, they found a Spanish-language script, apparently used by agents administrating the program, to convince immigrants to sign the stipulated order of removal. The script, replete with grammatical errors and legal inaccuracies, erroneously informs immigrants that the “only” way to “fix” their papers is through certain family relationships and openly discourages immigrants from taking their cases to court.

“This report confirms what attorneys working in detention centers have heard for years: non-citizens, especially those with limited English skills, are pressured into signing documents without being informed of the severe consequences of their actions,” said Karen Tumlin, managing attorney at the National Immigration Law Center and co-author of the report.

Undisclosed: potential permission to remain in US

Undocumented immigrants may have a right to remain, such as if they have lived in America for a long period of time, have no criminal record and have children born in the country.

Instead of deportation, the non-criminals also may have qualified for less-severe voluntary departure, which gives immigrants the chance to return to the US if they qualify for a green card, said Tumlin. Instead, by accepting ‘stipulated removal’, immigrants are generally barred from coming back to the U.S. for as long as 10 years and face felony charges for illegally re-entering the country.

Phillip Crawford, a former field director for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations in Arizona, told the Arizona Republic that it is a shame that the program had been curtailed.

He claimed it had several levels of “safeguards” to ensure that rights were protected and that participants understood what they were signing. Each case was reviewed by ICE officers during processing at detention centers, by ICE prosecutors and by an immigration judge who has the power to reject the deportation if the judge believed the immigrant had legal grounds to remain.

In September 2010, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigration officials at Eloy had violated the rights of Isaac Ramos. Ramos, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico with prior criminal convictions, had agreed to stipulated removal while being detained in Eloy in 2006. The court ruled that the government failed to make clear to Ramos that he was giving up his right to talk to a lawyer, who could have explained the process and the penalties. The court also ruled that the immigration judge who signed Ramos’ deportation order failed to determine if Ramos had agreed to stipulated removal “voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently,” as required.

Ramos, who is married to a legal permanent resident and has two U.S.-citizen children, had argued that he should be allowed to return to the U.S. since his rights to due process were violated. The court, however, denied that request.

Arizona now has a system called “prompt hearings.”

At a hearing anyone facing deportation is advised of their full array of rights and an Immigration judge confirms that they are aware of any possibility to legally remain in America.

Related articles

• Report: Obama regime removing thousands denied due process (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• In the US, abuse of LGBT asylum seeker and migrant detainees "is on the rise" (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• NYC City Council: No More Help for Immigration (care2.com)
• Why is Arizona shacking, isolating gay, raped immigration detainees? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Report: “Culture of cruelty” amongst US Border Patrol

Pictured are life-saving resources such as water and cans of beans destroyed which No More Deaths volunteers find in the desert. Volunteers have witnessed, documented, and videotaped Border Patrol Agents destroying these invaluable resources.

Via: ImmigrationProf Blog

A new report from Tucson-based No More Deaths (NMD) finds that U.S. Border Patrol agents regularly engage in unsafe and unsanitary detention practices; physically abuse detainees; and refuse medical attention to those who need it, among other violations of human rights. The group charges that these abuses amount to a “culture of cruelty” within the Border Patrol, now part of the largest federal law enforcement body in the United States.

Nearly 13,000 former detainees were interviewed for the report, named 'A Culture of Cruelty: Abuse and Impunity in Short-Term U.S. Border Patrol Custody'. One interview involved a 54-year-old man who had lived in Los Angeles for 35 years. Border Patrol detained him in October 2010, as he tried to return home after visiting his ailing mother in Mexico. He suffered a back injury when the Border Patrol vehicle transporting him flipped over. After hospital treatment, he was deported and then died in Nogales, Sonora after his medication ran out.

Once detained, migrants are not protected from sexual abuse as the Federal government is refusing to extend the protection of the Prison rape Elimination Act to immigration and asylum detainees.

They also face being transferred, often repeatedly, to remote detention centers by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a Human Rights Watch report from June which analyzed 12 years of data.

Says Danielle Alvarado, a No More Deaths volunteer and co-author of the report:

“What we’ve found is clearly not the result of a few ‘bad apples’. We continue to hear the same stories from thousands of people, released from different Border Patrol stations, year after year. They are alarmingly consistent.”

According to the interviews, individuals suffering severe dehydration are routinely deprived of water; people with life-threatening medical conditions are denied treatment; children and adults are beaten during apprehensions and in custody; many are crammed into cells and subjected to extreme temperatures, deprived of sleep and subject to humiliation and other forms of psychological abuse. Alvarado suggests that many of the practices documented in the report constitute torture under international law.

Border Patrol agents often use a tactic of rushing at people on horseback or flying low in helicopters (“dusting”) to scatter migrants encountered in the desert, the report says.

This terrorizing tactic causes injuries to migrants attempting to get out of harm’s way. Those who aren’t apprehended are often left behind in the desert.

Conditions in Border Patrol custody have not changed much since 2008, the volunteers say, when NMD published its first report documenting abuses of detainees. Says Alvarado:

“Absolutely no one is taking responsibility for the patterns of abuse that persist. We have filed dozens of complaints and not one has produced any change. This is just one more way the Obama administration’s flawed approach to enforcement has undermined his credibility with immigrant communities. It is an affront to our collective sense of justice, fairness, and equality.”

The group is urging an immediate end to abusive practices, report and transparent, independent, and accountable oversight of the U.S. Border Patrol – including an overhaul of the complaint investigation process.

• No More Deaths Petition to End Border Patrol Abuse

Culture of Cruelty

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Video: In US, private contractors make a killing off Border Crackdown

Source: RTAmerica



While many American industries are slowing down, the private prison industry is booming. Much of that is attributed to their lobbying efforts, which some say create the condition for mass incarceration. The private prison lobby has had major influence in places like Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Utah and Alabama, states which have recently passed some of the strictest anti-immigrant policies. Policies, which would likely help fill those prison cells.

Illegal immigrants cash cow for corporations

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In US, immigrants in detention are forgotten victims of prison rape

Image via Wikipedia

Source: ACLU

Imagine you are arrested — not for committing a crime, but because of your immigration status. You are then taken to an unfamiliar location and locked up in a detention center, far away from your family and friends, to await complicated, confusing, and potentially very lengthy and confusing deportation proceedings. Most of your interactions are in English, your second (or perhaps even fourth) language. You don't have any legal representation to explain what your rights are or how to apply for relief you may be eligible to receive. And in the midst of this stressful time, you are sexually assaulted by a guard — the very person assigned to protect you from harm. What would you do? Would you tell someone, or stay silent for fear that speaking up might increase your chances of deportation or further abuse? If you decided to come forward, whom would you tell, or trust?

For Tanya, a transgender woman detained at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, this nightmare was a reality. Tanya was intimidated, harassed, and humiliated because of her gender identity during her stay at Eloy — by detainees and staff alike. She was placed in housing with men, where a cellmate threatened her and attempted to force her to perform sexual acts. In a separate incident, a supervisor at the facility sexually assaulted her. Each time Tanya reported the harassment and abuse, she was punished by being placed in "protective custody," or isolation. Rather than protect her, guards used the threat of isolation to intimidate her. While Tanya has since been released, she still suffers from the emotional pain she endured while at Eloy.

Tanya's story is common among the extremely vulnerable population in civil immigration detention. For them, detention means not only the possibility of deportation, loss of liberty, and separation from family, but also an increased chance of falling victim to sexual abuse. And in most cases, they have nowhere to turn.

Since January 2007, there have been 125 complaints of sexual abuse in immigration detention, and it is extremely likely that many more incidents have gone unreported. Fear of reprisal, lack of legal representation, and language and cultural barriers all make immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody less inclined to report abuse, and therefore allowing perpetrators to act with impunity.

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In US, asylum and migrant detainees "bounced around the country"

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Human Rights Watch

Detained immigrants facing deportation in the United States are being transferred, often repeatedly, to remote detention centers by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Human Rights Watch say in a new report analyzing 12 years of data.

The 37-page report, "A Costly Move: Far and Frequent Transfers Impede Hearings for Immigrant Detainees in the United States," says transfers separate detained immigrants, including legal permanent residents, refugees, and undocumented people, from the attorneys, witnesses, and evidence they need to defend against deportation. That can violate their right to fair treatment in court, slow down asylum or deportation proceedings, and extend their time in detention, Human Rights Watch said.

"Transfers don't just move people, they push aside their rights," said Alison Parker, US program director and author of the report. "They can prevent immigrants, like those lawfully here or in need of asylum from persecution, from having an attorney or defending their right to remain in the United States."

Human Rights Watch's analysis of 2 million transfer records over 12 years shows that over 46 percent of transferred detainees were moved two or more times. One egregious case involved a detainee who was transferred 66 times. On average, each transferred detainee traveled 370 miles; and one frequent transfer pattern (from Pennsylvania to Texas) covered 1,642 miles. Such long-distance and repetitive transfers can make attorney-client relationships unworkable, separate immigrants from the evidence they need to present in court, and make family visits so costly that they rarely, if ever, occur.

One immigration attorney said:

"I have never represented someone who has not been in more than three detention facilities. Could be El Paso, Texas, a facility in Arizona, or they send people to Hawaii.... I have been practicing immigration law for more than a decade. Never once have I been notified of [my client's] transfer. Never."

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In the US, abuse of LGBT asylum seeker and migrant detainees "is on the rise"

Image by adamj1555 via Flickr

Source: The Arizona Republic

By Daniel González

The assault took place while Ramon Catalan, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was detained by federal immigration authorities in a Pinal County jail.

Catalan, a transgender man who lives as a woman, was in a cell when four other immigration detainees began insulting her in Spanish.

"One guy said he didn't want to be around a (homosexual)," said Catalan, who prefers to be called Monica and wears her hair long and plucks her eyebrows.

Then, the beating started. While one man stood lookout, the others threw her onto the floor, then repeatedly punched and kicked her. The attack lasted four or five minutes. By the time it was over, Catalan's face was covered in blood.

The assault was not an isolated incident, immigrant advocates and lawyers say.

Reports of similar attacks and other abuses against gay and transgender detainees are on the rise around the nation as the number of undocumented immigrants in custody has skyrocketed as part of the federal government's crackdown on illegal immigration.

In Arizona alone, the ACLU found five cases of transgender or gay detainees who were sexually assaulted or abused over a two-year period, according to a study released Thursday. Catalan was not among them.

The 36-page report, "In Their Own Words: Enduring Abuse in Arizona Immigration Detention Centers," [PDF] is based on 115 interviews with detainees in facilities in Eloy and Florence from March 2009 through March 2011. ACLU attorney Victoria Lopez also reviewed hundreds of reports and records, including 500 grievances, some of which were filed by gay and transgender detainees like Catalan who were abused while in detention.

"While (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) does not systemically track the number of sexual assaults in detention facilities across the country, these and other reported cases very likely represent only a fraction of the actual cases of sexual abuse of immigrants in detention," Lopez wrote.

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In US, anti-immigrant legal moves will impact LGBT says group

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Immigration Equality

Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equality under U.S. immigration law for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive individuals, has filed an amicus brief in support of a constitutional challenge to Utah’s recently enacted Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act (“HB 497”). The group says the law – which mirrors the controversial measure passed last year in Arizona – could place LGBT binational families in legal jeopardy under a provision that criminalizes “harboring” and “sheltering” undocumented individuals. That provision, the brief filed yesterday argues, would criminalize LGBT Americans who live with undocumented partners from abroad.

“Utah’s unconscionable new immigration law actually criminalizes sharing a home with an undocumented person, even if that person is a partner or spouse,” said Victoria Neilson, the group’s legal director.  

“No one should be arrested for sharing their home with the person they love, but that is the very real possibility presented by this law. With this legislation, families who previously had no legal recognition are now in legal jeopardy. That is unacceptable and unconstitutional.”

A couple cited in Immigration Equality’s brief, who asked not to use their names for fear of prosecution, is among the countless families who face potential prosecution under the law. The American citizen, a lifelong resident of Utah and a social worker, is considering leaving the state because his partner of two years, who received training to become a doctor, overstayed his visa. Under current immigration laws, the American has no ability to sponsor his partner for residency, as married, straight couples are allowed to do.

Merely living together, as many binational couples do, turns the American citizen into a criminal under the Utah law. A copy of the organization’s brief is available online at www.immigrationequality.org/issues/law-library/legal-briefs/. The brief was filed with pro bono support from the law firm of WilmerHale – including attorneys Alan Schoenfeld, Doug Curtis, Brian Sutherland, Patty Li, Michael Gottesman and Shauna Friedman – and local counsel, Brian Barnard of Utah Legal Clinic.

Related articles

• First Steps on Same-Sex Binationals Path to Green Cards (out4immigration.blogspot.com)
• ACLU Sues Utah Over Immigration Enforcement Law (blogs.wsj.com)
• Utah Governor Signs Landmark Immigration Bills (latino.foxnews.com)

America's 2010 immigration news in review

Source: ImmigrationProf Blog

It is time to review the top U.S. immigration news stories for 2010.  Here are my selections.

One of the headlines of a story posted early last January was “Is Enforcement Now, Enforcement Forever Winning?”  In reviewing the blog stories for 2010, I fear that the answer to this question is “yes.”  Still, we had some good immigration news.  

 1.     ARIZONA'S SB 1070:  The Arizona legislature, Governor Jan Brewer signs into law, and a district court strikes down (in large part) Arizona’s SB 1070. This fall, the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case and a decision is pending.  Arizona's aggressive immigration enforcement law caused a national and international buzz, with Arizona dubbed the "show me your papers state."

2.     CONGRESS FAILS TO PASS THE DREAM ACT:  After years of talk, and weeks of intense lobbying, Congress in December fails to pass the DREAM Act.

3.     CONGRESS FAILS TO PASS CIR:  After years of discussion, the U.S. Congress again fails to pass comprehensive (or any) immigration reform.

 4.     OBAMA DEPORTS MORE THAN ANY U.S. PRESIDENT IN HISTORY:  The Obama administration deported a record number (392,862) of noncitizens for the year, more than any President in U.S. history.
 
 5.     SHERIFF JOE DOES NOT GO:  Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, always controversial and under fire, remains in office despite conducting a reign of terror of Latinos in Arizona.
 
 6.     DEATH ON THE BORDER CONTINUES:   Increased border enforcement results in increased border deaths, with records set (and here).

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Who is behind America's 'grassroots' immigrant backlash?

Image by Campus Progress via Flickr 

Source: Phoenix New Times

By Terry Greene Sterling

On June 5, hundreds rallied at the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza in Phoenix in support of SB 1070, the harshest state immigration law in the nation, which had been signed by Governor Jan Brewer six weeks earlier.

The crowd of mostly middle-aged, working-class Anglos waved handmade signs blaring such things as:

"14 Million Jobless Americans; 13 Million Illegals, DO THE MATH, MR. PRESIDENT."

And:

"SB 1070 is not racist!"

It was a hot day. People were sunburned. Some wore American-flag shirts, American-flag baseball caps, or American-flag necklaces. Some carried American flags. They stood in the sun to hear a lineup of speakers deliver the same victory-themed message: Americans are under siege by hordes of illegal invaders who steal their jobs and suck up public benefits . . . and, in this economy, how much more can Americans be expected to endure?

The call-to-arms message: Enough is enough, rise up, get active, donate, vote, stop illegal immigration now — before it's too late.

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Video: In the US, Latino LGBT activists continue fight for immigration reform

LGBT Latinos are part of the wider fight for immigration reform in the United States and against anti immigrant laws like Arizona's SB1070, aka the 'papers please' law. CarlosDCblog talks with Gustavo Andrade, an activist and organizer in Washington, DC.

Related articles

• Investigation Reveals the Deception Behind the Anti-Immigrant Movement (alternet.org)
• After SB1070: Adios Arizona (economist.com)
• Christine Pelosi: They Keep Coming: Anti-Immigrants Bring Son of S.B. 1070 to California (huffingtonpost.com)

Sexual assault and abuse rampant in America’s immigration detention centers

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Campus Progress


By Catherine Traywick

A year ago, the Obama administration touted the newly overhauled T. Don Hutto Residential Center as a model detention facility.

Three years earlier, the facility, located in Taylor, Texas, had come under fire after news broke that a guard had engaged in sexual acts with a detainee—while her young son lay sleeping in the same small cell. Security cameras had caught the man entering and exiting the room. The guard was fired, but he was not prosecuted.

Months later, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) documented the prison-like conditions to which Hutto subjected detainees of all ages: Confining them in small cells for up to 12 hours a day, forcing them to wear prison uniforms, and routinely depriving them of access to education, health care, and privacy.  The ACLU, on behalf of prisoners, sued the Department of Homeland Security over the issue and won.

Last year, administration officials billed the facility as transformed from an inhospitable prison for families into a “person-centered” facility for women. Hutto was supposed to set the stage for the administration’s vision of truly “civil detention reform.” Hutto’s bad reputation made it a good candidate for reform. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the for-profit company that operates Hutto and most other immigration detention centers in this country, worked with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to rehabilitate the facility. It was duly relieved of housing families and revamped to provide women detainees with a less punitive residential experience.

Then this August another guard at the facility, Donald Charles Dunn, was arrested for sexually assaulting several detainees while transporting them for release. To date, no one knows exactly how many women he assaulted before deportation or release. The incident stood standing out as a remarkable failure of justice and publicly revived Hutto’s troubling legacy of bad management and misconduct.

Now, of course, Hutto is a blight on the administration’s vision for detention reform—an ugly reminder that our detention system remains woefully impaired and anything but civil.

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In the USA, humane alternatives to detention are desperately needed

Image via Wikipedia 

Source: change.org

By Alex DiBranco

The immigration detention system is both a human rights travesty and a massive money pit. While we're busy enriching private prison contractors like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's pals at Corrections Corporation of America, detainees are separated from their loved ones, can await a hearing for years, and are all too often subjected to medical negligence or sexual abuse. And, please, remember, these are people who are only charged with being in the country without authorization: although the immigration system tends to treat people as guilty until proved innocent, these people have yet to be found to be wrongfully in the country at a court hearing, some are seeking asylum, and there are even wrongfully accused American citizens mixed in there.

With two high-profile deaths on the immigration detention system's record, President Barack Obama promised to implement some real changes to stop inhumane treatment. Instead, the Obama administration kept busy trying (and failing) to defend the government against culpability for detainee deaths.

The most heartening sign we've seen recently that maybe, just maybe, we can expect to see some of that promised change in the detention system came with the announcement that 17,000 detainees without serious criminal records would be released and no further removal action taken against them. Many of these people have strong cases for being legalized through a spousal or crime victims visa, so it makes humanitarian and economic sense to set them free. However, free-and-clear release isn't an option for every single detainee in the system, which means that detention reform remains just as pressing as ever.

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US immigration reform: The undocumented cross-dresser

Source: Daily Beast

By Terry Greene Sterling

In all of the debate over the immigration law in Arizona the individual lives of people like Rodrigo, a manual laborer and cross-dresser, can get lost. Terry Greene Sterling tells his story in her new book, Illegal.

Arizona is the epicenter of the nation’s immigration brawl and my new book, Illegal: Life and Death in Arizona’s Immigration War Zone, profiles the invisible immigrants stubbornly hunkering down in the Phoenix area, persevering despite kidnappings, killings, and laws meant to drive them out of the state. I follow several characters over time, chronicling how they hope, sin, die, work, and love in the shadows of Phoenix.

In one chapter, called “The Border Crosser,” I profile Rodrigo, a cross-dressing construction worker whose alter ego, Erika, morphs from a southern Mexico prostitute to an Arizona party girl after she sneaks into Phoenix. Erika and Rodrigo share the same hubris—they fall in love with married men who grew up under the enforced heterosexuality of Mexican Catholicism. In the excerpt that follows I visit Rodrigo in the apartment he shares with Emilio, who as a kid was smuggled across the line by a pedophile narco. The passage brings the readers into Rodrigo’s tentative world, and foreshadows the dangers and temptations that lie ahead.

I visited Rodrigo several times in the spring of 2009. He shared the apartment with a friend I’ll call Emilio, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had been smuggled into the United States at the age of 12 by a drug lord. Emilio had been kept in the drug lord’s Chicago home and used as a sex slave. Orphaned in Mexico, Emilio didn’t have a lot of options, and would never think of his years in Chicago as sexual abuse. He would instead remember them as confining. A babysitter took care of him when the pedophile drug lord was out of town, and Emilio was well fed and clothed. Mostly, he watched TV, which taught him English, played video games, and plotted his escape. He secretly communicated with another immigrant who had a relative in Phoenix, and finally the two escaped to Arizona. Emilio eventually got a job at a fast-food restaurant using a friend’s Social Security card, and his English skills and work ethic soon got him promoted to manager. By this time, he was in his late 20s.

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