Doing Asylum Work in a Prison: Bearing “Witness” to Trauma on the Fly

For years I have been doing asylum evaluations in my office, of people who come from all over the world seeking political asylum in America. In August 2015, I spent a week in Dilley, Texas, doing similar asylum evaluations, this time in a prison: the South Texas Family Residential Center (STFRC). This is a privately owned facility, one of four like it in the U.S., in which women and children—fleeing gangs and spousal violence in Mexico and Central America—have been imprisoned by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Although they are safe in the facility and are sufficiently fed and clothed, the place is not good for any of them for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it is a prison: they are not “free.” Recently, the women have been in the news a lot (see, for example, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/22/immigrant-children-detention-california-judge), since Judge Dora Gee of California has ruled that their situation is inhumane and incompatible with a fair and just legal process.

Before and since Judge Gee's ruling, an organization called CARA—which is actually a consortium of four organizations (Catholic Legal Immigration network, American Immigration Council, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and American Immigration Lawyer Association)—has been sending collaborative teams of asylum workers from all over the country to expedite the process of getting the women and children out of STFRC. A different team goes each week. Three or four very competent individuals are stationed there long-term, as overseers. The weekly groups, directed by the overseers, do the necessary evaluations and write the necessary briefs in order to get bond hearings set up, etc., so the women can leave and go on to relatives or friends in other parts of the country and get on with their lives. The entire tone of the project is one of collaboration. The work is cumulative and anonymous, added to each week by suc