Live From Artesia: Day Two, Afternoon Edition

There is a client consultation trailer at the Artesia detention facility. It is split into different zones.

Along one edge of the trailer there is a narrow “lawyers-only” corridor. It runs the length of the trailer and is perhaps 5 feet wide.

There’s a table near the entrance to the lawyer’s corridor where ICE agents sit. These are the guys who bring clients to the trailer. They also escort lawyers to and from their cars and to the restrooms. (We are dangerous folk who cannot walk around unaccompanied.) These guys are by and large incredibly friendly – to us, the women, and especially the kids.

The trailer also has five modular “offices” for meeting with clients. Each has sliding semi-opaque doors and walls that don’t reach to the ceiling. It therefore has neither the appearance of privacy nor actual privacy.

The rest of the trailer is essentially a waiting area. There are eight tables each with four chairs. There’s a brightly colored oval right in front of a TV that is always playing a children’s movie – sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English. (I can now tell you the entire plot of Ice Age: The Meltdown. Be jealous.)

I spent the afternoon in the trailer meeting with clients. I saw six different women and, for the most part, spoke with them about their upcoming bond hearings. Some were stoic. Some were weepy. Some were sick. All were tired of being in detention. All prayed to God that their bond hearings would be granted.

I can’t sign off without noting what was, for me, the biggest surprise of the afternoon. I walked into the ladies’ bathroom and found a volunteer barber cutting kids’ hair. The boys all seemed to be sporting identical buzz cuts. But a little girl, maybe 7 or 8, was getting a careful trim of her very long locks. She looked so happy to be sitting in that chair, having her hair so carefully combed and trimmed.
-KitJ