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By WILL
COLEY
2007 Conference
Coordinator
At the close of summer, the lives of two immigrants were
publicly and permanently changed in Southern California. Besides both
being immigrants from Mexico, they also had a last name in common:
Arellano. The differences in what happened to Elvira and Victoria
illustrate the priorities of the federal agency charged with enforcing
U.S. immigration law, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), in the
midst of our national debate on immigration.
Elvira Arellano is an activist who took refuge in a Chicago
church rather than report for deportation and face separation from her
child, Saulito, a U.S. citizen. After traveling to Los Angeles for a
speaking engagement, she was apprehended and summarily deported in
August. Not long before, a transgender immigrant, Victoria Arellano,
died after being denied anti-viral AIDS medications in a San Pedro
detention facility. Before her death, Victoria’s cellmates protested
her lack of medical treatment. Shortly after her death, ICE transferred
them to other facilities in order to keep them from speaking out.
While ICE may deny the charge, money was the issue in Victoria
Arellano’s death; anti-viral drugs are expensive, after all. Normally,
detainees with expensive health conditions are quickly paroled so they
won’t be costly drags on detention center budgets. It’s unclear why ICE
refused to parole Victoria. Perhaps they didn’t realize how acute her
health needs were — a deadly miscalculation.
Not long after ICE refused to spend money to keep Victoria
alive, they spent a tidy sum on apprehending another immigrant: a vocal
activist in the current immigration debate. It’s clear that ICE wanted
to make an example of Elvira, even releasing a statement that claimed
she was a “felon” despite the fact she had not been convicted.
Eyewitnesses report that several cars blocked the exit outside of the
church where she was speaking and that enforcement agents removed and
handcuffed her. Despite the expensive efforts to pick up Elvira, no
thought was given to eight-year-old Saul and what would happen to him.
This is standard practice in raids across the country. Children who are
U.S. citizens are routinely overlooked as collateral damage. The costs
of their care, however, are shunted to other agencies, often welfare or
even foster care providers, because social services are outside of ICE’s
purview.
Some observers claim it is important to remember that Elvira and
Victoria faced deportation because they were undocumented. Their cases,
many claim, illustrate our “broken system.” But the system is more than
simply broken — it is out of date and out of touch with the current
realities of the immigrants who live in our midst. What Elvira so
eloquently spoke about (until ICE decided to take extraordinary steps to
silence her) was that something is wrong when children are separated
from their parents by antiquated laws. Our current immigration laws
refuse to recognize that certain members of our society are human beings
with families.
Laws can be out of date. One only need notice this year’s 40th
anniversary of Virginia vs. Loving, the U.S. Supreme Court case
that overturned bans on interracial marriage. Our nation has frequently
reexamined laws that have become outdated as we broaden conceptions of
human rights. Just as we have struggled to overcome sanctioned racial
intolerance, we must also face failed economic and migration policies.
Keep in mind that our current laws were designed before NAFTA, a trade
agreement that has had a profound affect on migration throughout North
America.
In addition to separating families, our antiquated system kills
people like Victoria. Since 2004, 64 people have died in ICE custody.
Detention centers in this country are regulated by standards, not
regulations. Could anything be more behind the times than to have a
para-prison system that is run by what amounts to suggestions for the
treatment of inmates? ICE would rather invest in shuttling people
between facilities than own up to the fact that they are accidental
jailers without any idea of how to do their job. In the end, this
incompetence cost Victoria Arellano her life.
In addition to serving as coordinator of the
6th National
Low-Income Immigrant Rights Conference (Dec. 6–8, Arlington, VA),
Will Coley is a member of the
Detention Watch Network.
This article originally was published under the title “Unregulated
Detention System Puts Immigrants’ Lives and Dignity at Risk” by the
Los Angeles Daily Journal,
Sept. 19, 2007, p. 6. Copyright 2007
Daily Journal Corp. Reprinted and/or posted with permission.
This file cannot be downloaded from this page. The Daily Journal’s
definition of reprint and posting permission does not include the
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