I visited an immigration detention center

On Friday, July 12, during a period of ICE raids taking place in cities across the country and in the midst of a nationwide immigration crisis, enraged citizens gathered to rally. Their purpose was to show the detained immigrants that the government is acting in our name, but without our consent. To these citizens, the current situation is wrong.

We drove about fifty minutes to Elizabeth New Jersey, just outside of New York City. We spent a half hour looking for a parking spot, and eventually settled wedged in between two cars, both outfitted in rainbow flag, coexist and campaign stickers from past democratic candidates.

As we approached the rally on foot, we came upon what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse of some sort. The building was peppered with barbed wire and the windows were either spray-painted black or cement walls backed right up to them. From what I could see, there was no way sunlight could penetrate this building.

This was the immigration detention center. The place that housed children, mothers and families was so cold.

On the outside of the building was the rally. People of every age were gathered; there were hundreds. In the center was a blow up caricature of Donald Trump. In front of him was the crowd, nearly every person holding a sign of some sort. One that stuck out to me was: “Jesus was an immigrant, too.” Others included simple lines like “Close the camps!” I saw a little girl holding a cut out of a cardboard box with crayon scribbles on it, her other hand clutching a worn stuffed animal.

For three hours, different speakers took turns with a microphone. One woman who talked actually spent time in this particular detention center. She spoke towards the end of the rally, not by choice, but out of necessity. For the first part of the gathering, she was shaking and pacing. The building sparked serious trauma for her, and it took intense comforting on the part of those who traveled to the rally with her to even coax her to the crowd.

When she finally took the microphone, around two hours into the rally, her hand was visibly trembling. Regardless, she spoke eloquently and with an appeal to pathos that every other speaker failed to capture.

I did not catch her name, but the story resonated with me, the crowd, and hopefully now my readers.

When she was a child, she and her family left Guatemala. They came to America illegally, out of necessity. She described the government in her home country as corrupt, largely as a consequence to the United States’ meddling. She described family members who were shot and killed, scarring stories of horrors her childhood friends faced, and a specific event where she witnessed the “garbage children.”

She said, “Most of you have never been starving.” She continued to describe the conditions she witnessed these children were living in. They were, literally, starving.

When her family did make it to the United States, they were separated and placed in this exact detention center. She permanently lost contact with her brother. She recalled situations where guards abused their power, with her as the victim. These events left a mark on her memory. She said she was never the same following this period in her life. That being said, she stated that these kids, trapped behind those walls, would not be either. A whole generation would be damaged.

She closed her story by stating, “Let’s move forward and make this country better instead of moving backward and claiming greatness.”

No word she spoke was malicious. She did not call out or make derogatory comments about the current administration. She simply shared her story, capturing the hearts and evoking tears from the hundreds of people in front of her.

She is now married and a citizen. Her husband is also an immigrant; he is from El Salvador.

I write this blog post in order to share her story with a wider audience. I was moved, and I hope my readers are too.

an image from the rally