Today Jeanette became the first person to defy a deportation order in the new Trump era. She took sanctuary at a church in downtown Denver before sending her lawyer to a hearing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). At the hearing, her lawyer requested a stay of deportation, which Jeanette has received since 2013. Because she is no threat, because she contributes to the Denver community in a multitude of ways, ICE has granted stays for the past four years. What now has changed? The rationale is unclear. What is clear: if Jeanette had been at the meeting, armed ICE officials would have taken her into custody and deported her.
Jeanette has been in the United States for 18 years and has three children still at home. The youngest, Zury, is six years old. The kids will now live with their older sister. Their momwill at least be in the same country, praying that ICE follows federal guidelines and honors the sanctuary of the church.
The New York Times covered Jeanette's story today (NY Times ), as did CNN (CNN). Though I am not worthy of such august news sources, I have written about Jeanette and I want to honor her by telling the story here. As our discussion ran long, I will break it up into sections over the next few days. I hope readers are inspired by Jeanette's love for family and passion for social justice.
*********************************************************************
Jeanette, Mamí
“I
wake up every morning and check immediately to see that my children are with
me.”
-
Jeanette
Vizguerra
A
woman stagger-steps, spins in tiny circles, balanced only by the little girl
held tight in her arms. Winter clothes hide the child but the mother’s face glows
in the feeble light. Jeanette Vizguerra
and her youngest daughter, Zury, play at the park together for a video called
“A Child’s Wish,” part of a public service announcement titled “This is My American Story.” The
PSA was produced by national children’s advocacy organization First Focus
to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by immigrant families. Jeanette’s young
children can attest to that strain. Since 2012, she has missed a year of their
lives due to struggles with her immigration status.
Jeanette and her husband, Salvador, have four
children. All are U.S. citizens and three still live at home. At ages 12, 9 and
5, the youngest have suffered through long periods of their mother’s absence.
To help others understand their family’s stress and the dilemma of immigrant
families, Luna, Roberto and Zury appear in PSA’s, deliver letters to
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices, attend vigils and rallies.
They have inherited their mother’s fighting spirit.
***
I
met Zury at the front door of her house. Naturally suspicious of an unfamiliar
white woman, the little girl planted her feet behind a locked screen door and
cautiously pointed away towards the big corner lot.
“Mamí is there,” she said. “She’s sitting with
her friends, in the stripes.”
The
group of women sat under a banner proclaiming “Dreamers’ Mothers in Action.” A
petite lady in a striped shirt held the attention of the others. Big tables
spread with albondigas and pollo framed their circle and a crooked
‘yard sale’ sign explained the patchwork quilt of tarps and stacked clothing
that covered the extensive back yard.
Jeanette Vizguerra got up from her folding chair as I
approached and enfolded me in a hug. Her curly black hair was pulled back and
she had the same pointed chin and mobile face as her youngest daughter.
“Hola,” she said.
“These are my friends in “DMIA,” Dreamers’ Mothers In Action. We do a regular yard sale to raise funds to
pay for lawyers. Too many people in detention need help.”
Jeanette
introduced her right-hand woman. “And this is Brenda Villa. She is completamente bilingual, and she agreed
to stay and interpret for you.”
Clouds
jostled their way across the sky and a cool wind scattered napkins and
Styrofoam cups over the grass. As we all stooped and raced to collect fly-aways,
the women relaxed and speculated about the prospects of an afternoon storm, the
lack of customers.
After
resuming their places in the circle, they looked at me and Jeanette expectantly. I had anticipated a one-on-one meeting, but
the women made no move to leave. Some sat forward eagerly while others leaned
back in metal folding chairs and crossed their arms. The story belonged to the collective.
Jeanette’s
case was covered by the local press and even national vehicles such as the Huffington Post back in 2013, when she
won her first stay of removal from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. No one was startled by my interest in writing
about Jeanette, though they expressed surprise in a white woman’s focus on
detention.
“Jeanette, I read that you were in detention
on three separate occasions. What was it like?”
Jeanette
paused, and looked away, stared unseeingly at the piles of t-shirts and jeans.
“I have no good memories, only difficult ones. The thing I remember most is the
cold – completamente frío. The jail
in Arapahoe County was cold, too, but detention was worse.”
The
ladies nodded in agreement and exclaimed over the cold temperatures in prison
settings. Jeanette shivered, pulled on a white hoody with black geometric
shapes and zipped it tight. Her petite frame, wrapped in hoody and leggings,
looked like a teenager’s.
Brenda
said, “I think the buildings are kept freezing cold because it reduces the
spread of germs? And also to punish the detainees.”
“Yes,”
said Jeanette. “The cells are always made of concrete and metal, and the
detainees never have enough warm clothes. The clothing was not sufficient for
the temperature, and so people were always getting sick, especially with
respiratory conditions. There was no medical care, so people were ill for a
long time. Depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, they were all big problems
for the women in detention. It’s a hard place to be.”
“The
cold must not have worked on germs if people kept getting sick. When were you
in detention?”
“First,
at GEO Aurora (Colorado), for thirty-four days. Then, at a CCA (Corrections
Corporation of America) in El Paso for four months. Last, at GEO Aurora again
for ten days.”
“What
was it like? What was a typical day?”
“Ooof. Horrible. One female guard woke us in
the morning by yelling ‘Get up, you pigs, you won’t eat for free!’ The guards
always posted a list of chores, like cleaning toilets, doing laundry, scrubbing
floors. They assigned us to do chores by our last name. Sometimes they paid us
– was only 82 cents per day – but many times they did not pay. GEO and CCA are
supposed to contract this work out to other companies, but they save money by
making detainees do it. That’s a violation of our rights.”
Jeanette
sat up straighter. “If someone didn’t do
their assigned chores, they were put in solitary.”
She
went on to list the conditions of the women’s dorms: inadequate curtains on the
showers, guards ripping that curtain open at any stage of soaping or rinsing
and turning off the water, no door or partitions in front of the toilets which
were stationed at the front of a large room where 70 – 80 women slept in
bunkbeds.
I
had seen this environment in the women’s dormitory at the facility run by GEO
Corporation in Aurora, Colorado. The lack of privacy was shocking but the
cleanliness impressive.
Jeanette
nodded knowingly. “They had to clean the
room for you – for any visitor. If visiting clergy or a volunteer came into the
women’s dorm, detainees had to make it look perfect. If anything was out of
place – even a wrinkled blanket – the offender would go to solitary.”
Jeanette
explained that if the room was deemed clean enough, the women were rewarded
with a Dixie cup of ice cream. Mentions of dessert reminded me of teaching ESL
at the Aurora facility. The GEO recreation specialist and I had also used
sugary treats as small rewards when we conducted class in detention,
distributing candy bars for completed homework. Class took place in a cramped
corner room with metal chairs, oversized table and closed red door. Students
often joined the class just to keep warm for an hour.
Jeanette
pressed her lips together. “The situation is very bad. There is no dignity, no
protection of human rights. When I was in detention, I thought I would never
see my children again.”
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