Temporary immigration detention center looking permanent

Barbara Gonzalez, public information officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, shows a dormitory where immigrant families are housed at the Artesia, N.M., facility. Photo by Rudy Gutierrez/El Paso Times.

The federal government is holding more families that cross the border illegally instead of releasing them with directions to report to immigration authorities — but the challenges of doing that are starting to show.

In the two months since it opened a makeshift detention center to deal with the large numbers of single parents crossing the border with their children this year, chickenpox outbreaks have slowed deportations, advocates have sued to give detainees more access to lawyers, and now a Salvadoran woman has been paroled with her 18-month-old son due to his deteriorating health.

Elena, who asked that her last name not be used because she fled an abusive partner and gang member who threatened to kill her, said she had asked doctors to let her son visit a hospital because he was getting worse. Instead, she learned she would be released. She left Artesia (New Mexico) Residential Detention Center on Tuesday.

She’s in asylum proceedings after passing an interview to determine whether she has a credible fear of returning home, but an immigration judge had denied her bond. Her final hearing was scheduled for Oct. 2.

She and her son were caught in South Texas in late June and transferred to the 10-acre Federal Law Enforcement Center, which is also home to the detention center, in Artesia. Her son was later hospitalized and diagnosed with pneumonia, an ear infection, anemia and an adenovirus infection. Although he was released after two days, attorneys said medical records show he got worse.

“He used to be a happy a child who liked to play and run,” Elena said. “He wasn’t as fussy as you can hear him now,” she said as the baby wailed in the background.

Continue reading at the Arizona Daily Star.

Domestic violence now grounds for asylum

ARTESIA, N.M. — The nation’s top immigration court ruled last week that women who suffer severe domestic violence in their country may be eligible for asylum in the United States — and that decision is already affecting hearings here.

Attorneys at the makeshift detention center for Central American women and their children were successful twice this week in securing asylum for their clients.

On Thursday and Friday, judges heard two domestic violence asylum cases — one a 23-year-old mother of two from Honduras and the other a 36-year-old mother of four from El Salvador. They were the first hearings held at the facility since it opened in late June.

Last week, the Board of Immigration Appeals found in an unprecedented decision that a Guatemalan woman eligible for asylum as part of the “particular social group” category, in this case abused women from particular countries that are unwilling or unable to protect them. The historic decision resolved a nearly 20-year legal battle and offered guidance to courts across the nation.

The decision discussed only Guatemala, but lawyers and advocates say it can impact hundreds of pending cases — and slow the deportation of many of the Central American women who crossed the border with their children this year.

The decision could create a new stream of people seeking asylum, said Muzaffar Chishti with the D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute.

“I doubt it will be an exodus, but in the short-term it may increase the numbers of people who were hesitant until now,” Chishti said.

But attorneys and policy experts say there’s no reason to expect a flood.

“Canada has been granting asylum on domestic violence cases for years and has not seen a big uptick,” said Blaine Bookey, associate director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, who assisted in the Artesia cases.

The number of women trying to cross the desert with their children jumped from about 12,000 last year to more than 66,000 this year. Many of them are fleeing entrenched poverty, gang and drug violence — some driven by rumors that the United States was giving families an opportunity to stay.

Continue reading at the Arizona Daily Star.