{"id":351,"date":"2020-09-05T15:52:50","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T15:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salvavision.org\/?p=5147"},"modified":"2020-09-05T15:52:50","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T15:52:50","slug":"there-is-no-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/09\/05\/there-is-no-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThere Is No Mercy\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally published on The Intercept<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ryan Devereaux<\/a>
September 5 2020, 4:00 a.m.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A short walk from the border, in the Mexican city of Nogales, Sonora, sits a modest building packed with long, cafeteria-style tables. The comedor,<\/em> as it\u2019s known locally, is clean and inviting, with space for up to 60 guests. The walls are decorated with hand-painted images of Christ and his apostles, done in the style of a children\u2019s book. Tucked away in one corner of the room are medical supplies, stacked and organized in plastic bins. Sister Mar\u00eda Engracia Robles Robles, a nun with the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist, floats from the kitchen into the common area, serving hot breakfast and lunch to anyone who needs it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comedor was born out of work Robles and two other nuns began in 2006. At the time, Arizona was the epicenter of migration along the border and the site of a major humanitarian crisis. While people headed north were dying in the desert in record numbers, a growing deportation machine was sending a steady flow of survivors to Nogales. The nuns began feeding the deportees out of the trunks of their cars. In 2008, they secured the property where the comedor now stands. Officially run by a coalition of organizations known as the Kino Border Initiative, its first iteration had no walls. There was no relief from the desert heat. When the monsoons came, the nuns walked through standing water to serve food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n years past, the guests were almost all recently deported Mexican men. \nThat\u2019s no longer the case. Sitting in the corner of the comedor on a \nbright, clear morning in late February, I watched as a long line of \nfamilies from Guatemala, Honduras, and other countries in Latin America \nand across the world walked through the front door. They filled the \nbenches, packed shoulder to shoulder. Many came by bus from Ciudad \nJuarez, crossing contested cartel territory where a Mormon family was \nmassacred just a few months prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the parents and kids were settled in, Sister Robles went around \nthe room asking them what they were thankful for. As I scribbled a man\u2019s\n answer in my notebook \u2014 to be with his daughter \u2014 a little girl in a \npink jumper handed me an empty tube of Chapstick, then a tiny figurine \nof a woman in a green dress, then a broken blue crayon. She smiled as \nshe shared her treasures one by one. The girl and her sister were from \nChilpancingo, her mother later told me, a Mexican city in the state of \nGuerrero, not far from the town where 43 students<\/a> were disappeared by police in 2014. It was the violence, the mother said, that caused them to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was halfway through a three-week reporting trip from one end of the\n border to the other when I stopped at the comedor. The aim of the trip \nwas to take stock of the Trump administration\u2019s impact after three and a\n half years in office, to spend time with those caught in the crosshairs\n of the president\u2019s policies, and to check in with the border-wide \nnetwork of immigration attorneys, humanitarian aid workers, and asylum \nadvocates by their side. From Matamoros to Juarez, from Nogales to \nTijuana, I had heard stories from asylum-seeking families who were \ndrowning in a system of punishment, power, and exclusion, vast in both \nits scope and viciousness. They were running from one form of violence \ninto another, slamming headfirst into the most gleefully anti-immigrant \ngovernment in modern American history. Across the border, everyone \nseemed to agree: This moment was different, and it was hard to imagine \nthat things could get any worse.The\n coronavirus presented the architects of Trump\u2019s border policies with \nthe pretext to shut down the border and choke off asylum once and for \nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The months that \nfollowed upended that notion. The coronavirus presented the architects \nof Donald Trump\u2019s border policies with a remarkable opportunity, a \nreal-world emergency that would provide the pretext to shut down the \nborder and choke off asylum once and for all. With Covid-19 swiftly cast\n as a foreign invader, the president, vying for reelection, returned to \nthe narrative that helped land him in the White House in the first \nplace. Border Patrol agents began throwing people back by the thousands,\n tossing men, women, and children across the international divide \nwithout a trace of due process. With hearings postponed and canceled, \nthe wait grew increasingly indefinite and uncertain for the roughly \n60,000 individuals in the administration\u2019s Remain in Mexico program, \nmany of them young families stuck in the continent\u2019s most dangerous \ncities \u2014 places where more than 1,000 people had already been kidnapped,\n assaulted, or murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the administration pushing asylum-seekers back into Mexico, \njails and detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement \nwere becoming blackholes where it seemed the only way out was \ndeportation. By late February, three weeks before Trump declared the \ncoronavirus a national emergency, Linda Rivas, executive director of the\n legal advocacy organization Las Americas in El Paso, Texas, was among a\n small group of attorneys still making trips into Juarez to meet with \nclients. \u201cThere are no eyes on the detention centers right now,\u201d she \ntold me at the time. \u201cThe conditions are really deteriorating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than three decades, Las Americas has provided legal \nrepresentation to migrants. Rivas and her colleagues have seen their \nshare of suffering on the border. Still, she said, the Trump years had \nmanaged to produce \u201csome of the hardest, darkest, most difficult times \nin our history.\u201d Front-line advocates were reaching a breaking point. \n\u201cWe need some level of hope,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cThe question of what comes \nnext is utterly terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Unsettling Reality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent \nstanding in the U.S. is seen from the Mexican side of the international \nbridge as people wait to be allowed to cross into the country in \nMatamoros, Mexico, on Feb. 13, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPhoto: Veronica G. Cardenas for The Intercept<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standing\n outside the comedor, I met Hushbaht Fahriev, a 29-year-old Muslim man \nfrom Siberia. Fahriev explained how Islamophobic policing and skinhead \nviolence prompted him and his wife to grab their two toddler-aged \nchildren and flee halfway around the world. Fahriev had been in Nogales \nwith the kids for five months. From a rented room not far from the \ncomedor, he was making progress teaching himself English and Spanish, \nbut there was no hiding that he was a foreigner. Just a couple weeks \nearlier, five men wearing tactical vests and carrying assault rifles \nstopped Fahriev as he was walking out of a corner store. They asked \nwhere he was from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told them I don\u2019t speak Spanish well and I keep walking,\u201d Fahriev \nrecalled. One of the men bashed him over the head with his weapon. The \nman continued striking him as Fahriev tried to explain that he could not\n communicate. The beating eventually stopped, and the men jumped into a \ntruck and sped off. Fahriev called the police and gave them the make and\n model of the vehicle, as well as its license number. The police did \nnothing with the information, he said. \u201cBe careful,\u201d Fahriev recalled \nthe cops saying. \u201cHere is dangerous.\u201dThe\n fact that a scaled-up, permanent base of operations was now considered \nnecessary confirmed an unsettling reality: The crisis wasn\u2019t going \nanywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the street\n from Kino\u2019s old comedor stood the organization\u2019s new, soon-to-be-opened\n facility. The men\u2019s dorm could house 70 people overnight. There was an \nadditional dorm for women and children, and another for transgender \ntravelers. A local quilting group donated handmade blankets for the \nbeds, and there were dedicated spaces for computer-aided job and English\n training, mental health counseling, and legal support. Walking the \nempty halls of the state-of-the-art shelter, it was clear that the \nhumanitarian community of Nogales had much to celebrate. Compared to the\n refugee camp in Matamoros that I had visited a few days earlier, this \nwas like something from another dimension. Still, when volunteers began \ntheir work in the city more than a decade ago, there was hope was that \nthe need would be temporary. The fact that a scaled-up, permanent base \nof operations was now considered necessary confirmed an unsettling \nreality: The crisis wasn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At around 2 p.m., a car pulled up outside the new shelter. The woman I was waiting for had arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dora Rodriguez was smiling as she opened her door. With chestnut hair\n pulled back behind her head, she wore a royal blue shirt emblazoned \nwith the name of her organization: Salvavision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m never at my work!\u201d Rodriguez said with a laugh, as she stepped \ninto the midday sun. Rodriguez is a full-time social worker. The border \nwork is her voluntary, chosen vocation. It was a Monday, which meant \nthat the 60-year-old was in the midst of her weekly routine, visiting \nsouthern Arizona detention centers, where she provides translation \nservices for legal advocates and takes supplies across the border to \nmigrant shelters in Nogales. Through the windshield, I could see her \nvehicle was stuffed with boxes and bags, overflowing with children\u2019s \ntoys and personal hygiene items. Across the street, a line for lunch was\n beginning to form at the comedor. Normally, Rodriguez radiates with a \nwarm and glowing smile, but when she turned to look at the growing crowd\n of families, her demeanor turned grave. She had never seen anything \nlike it, she told me. Driving to a shelter deeper in Nogales, Rodriguez \npointed to a graveyard where a group of Honduran men had been sleeping \nthe last time she was in town. She recalled how one of the men told her \nthat his number in the Remain in Mexico waiting line was 4,425. She knew\n his case was likely to fail. It was the same for just about everybody \ncoming to the border these days. It seemed nobody had the kind of \nevidence the government was requiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"TUCSON,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dora Rodriguez keeps donated items for \nasylum-seekers in her home in Tucson, Ariz., on March 13, 2020. She \nmakes individual care packages from the donated items and then \ndistributes them on a weekly basis to asylum-seekers in Nogales, Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPhoto: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd even if they have it,\u201d Rodriguez said, \u201cit\u2019s not enough \u2014 it\u2019s just not what they\u2019re doing at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winding through the back streets of the border town, Rodriguez \ndescribed a call she received last winter, when she was driving home \nfrom one of the detention centers. It was a Tucson humanitarian aid \nvolunteer seeking help on a case involving an asylum-seeking family from\n Venezuela. The family had managed to get paroled into the U.S., but \ntheir daughter, who happened to turn 18 that day, did not, on the \ngrounds that she was now an adult. She was separated from her parents \nand taken to detention. Nearly two months later, that\u2019s where she \nremained. \u201cIt was Christmas Eve,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no mercy,\u201d she told me. \u201cNone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mercy and Hardship<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When Dora Rodriguez speaks of mercy and hardship on the border, she \ndoes so from personal experience. The efforts she makes in the shelters \nand the detention centers is her way of working through that experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1980, when Rodriguez was 19 years old, she fled El Salvador in \nhopes of finding refuge in the United States. A civil war was raging. \nThe U.S.-backed regime was torturing, disappearing, and killing \ncivilians by the thousands. Rodriguez\u2019s town came under government \nattack. The head of her church youth group was murdered in front of her.\n With three of her friends already disappeared, Rodriguez knew there was\n no time to waste. She joined up with a group of refugees who were told \nthat, for a price, they could be safely taken across the border in \nArizona and flown to California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a scorching hot Fourth of July weekend, Rodriguez and more than \ntwo dozen other refugees, including three sisters, ages 12, 14, and 16, \nwere taken into the Sonoran Desert. Expecting to be flown west, some of \nthe women brought rolling luggage and wore dresses and high heels. The \nyoung sisters were told that they would be reunited with their mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DONATE NOW<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The refugees were abandoned by their guide soon after they crossed. \nThey spent days wandering the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, one \nof the most unforgiving landscapes in the Western hemisphere, in \n120-degree temperatures. Their water was gone in no time, and they \nresorted to drinking lotion, shaving cream, and their own urine. \nHallucination set in, and one by one they began to die. The hair on \nRodriguez\u2019s head burned from the heat. Desperate and delirious, she \nawoke on the sixth day to the sound of hooves and helicopters \u2014 a Border\n Patrol rescue party. Of the 26 refugees who set off on the journey, 13 \nwere dead. A photographer on hand for their dramatic rescue snapped an \nimage of Rodriguez, limp in a Border Patrol agent\u2019s arms, that made \nnewspapers around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"TUCSON,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"TUCSON,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Left\/Top:\n Detail of a bracelet that says, \u201cDORITA\u201d that an asylum-seeker in an \nICE detention facility made out of plastic bags for Dora Rodriguez. \nRight\/Bottom: Rodriguez holds the only photograph she has of herself \nfrom the days following her grueling journey through the Sonoran Desert \nas a young asylum-seeker.Photos: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n deaths on Organ Pipe were a turning point in southern Arizona. The \ntragedy exposed how the U.S. government was systematically and illegally\n denying asylum to Salvadorans and Guatemalans \u2014 people fleeing \ngovernments the United States was backing. Those denials sparked the \nSanctuary Movement, a campaign modeled after the Underground Railroad in\n which faith leaders in Tucson defied the federal government and moved \nthousands of refugees into houses of worship across the United States. \nThe movement\u2019s founders went on to create some of Arizona\u2019s most \nwell-established humanitarian organizations, which today work alongside \nthe Kino Border Initiative and Casas Alitas, a Tucson-based \norganization, to provide care for border crossers in the Sonoran Desert.\n Among them is No More Deaths, a collective of volunteers who leave \nwater for migrants crossing the desert and conduct search-and-recovery \noperations in the borderlands, and whom Trump administration prosecutors\n have repeatedly tried \u2014 and failed \u2014 to shut down and imprison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez\u2019s integration into Arizona\u2019s humanitarian scene was slow at\n first. In the wake of their rescue, she and the other refugees were \nheld as material witnesses against their smugglers, before the \ngovernment moved to deport them back to El Salvador. None were given \nasylum, though Rodriguez eventually gained citizenship through marriage.\n She worked in fast-food restaurants and warehouses, took night classes,\n and taught herself English. She put herself through college and had \nfive children, all U.S. citizens. For years, Rodriguez stayed quiet \nabout her story, a fact she attributes to an abusive marriage. When she \nleft that relationship, some 13 years ago, she began to find her voice.\u201cThis is how I really heal from my own experience. There is no way I would ever not do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\n matters of immigration policy, Rodriguez\u2019s view of Trump\u2019s predecessor \nis hardly rosy. The Obama administration deported more people than any \ngovernment in U.S. history, including more than 150,000 Salvadorans, \nmany with deep roots in the country. But when Trump descended his golden\n escalator in Manhattan in 2015, announcing his run for president by \nclaiming that Mexico was sending \u201crapists\u201d and criminals across the \nborder, Rodriguez felt a shift. Drawing from a politically potent well \nof anti-immigrant hate, Trump would fuse racist rhetoric, including his \nlater talk of \u201cshit-hole countries,\u201d with a real-world crackdown. \nRodriguez wasn\u2019t having it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election, for Rodriguez, was a turning point. In the spring of \n2019, she returned to the patch of desert where she was rescued \u2014 this \ntime with a local news crew. \u201cI told myself I cannot just keep my story \nto myself anymore because my story brings volunteers, it brings people,\u201d\n she explained. That fall, Rodriguez flew to Washington, D.C. with No \nMore Deaths volunteer Scott Warren<\/a>, a geographer whom the government was then trying to send to prison<\/a> on felony smuggling charges. The case fell apart<\/a>\n in November, and the government abruptly dropped its remaining charges \nin February. Rodriguez told lawmakers and human rights groups about her \nexperience of the humanitarian crisis on the border, both as an \nasylum-seeker and an advocate. The moment was as urgent as any she had \never seen and for her, inaction was out of the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is how I really heal from my own experience,\u201d she told me. \u201cThere is no way I would ever not do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voices From the Desert<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"TUCSON,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dora Rodriguez receives donations from \nPeggie Felici-Gessner, a volunteer at the Casa Alitas shelter that \ncaters to asylum-seekers in Tucson, Ariz., on March 14, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPhoto: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept
\nThe disembodied voices were piped in from private jails in the desert \noutside of town. The judge stared into his lap, looking half-dead as he \nrepeated the same script over and over, pausing to allow a Spanish \ntranslator to relay his words for each new detainee.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The voice that Rodriguez was waiting for would come from the \nshrublands between Phoenix and Tucson, from a dusty community where \nincarceration keeps the economy afloat and the biggest employer in town \nis a for-profit prison corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years leading up to Trump\u2019s inauguration, La Palma \nCorrectional Center, run by the private prison giant CoreCivic and \nlocated in the town of Eloy, Arizona, saw more deaths in custody than \nany ICE detention center in the country \u2014 15 in a 14-year period, \nseveral of them suicides. Rodriguez was a regular visitor to the \nfacility through her translation work with Keep Tucson Together, an \nimmigrant rights legal collective. In the past year, she had become \nparticularly invested in the fate of one young man being held there, a \nSalvadoran asylum-seeker named Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez first learned of Francisco\u2019s case through a documentary \nfilm crew, who had uncovered the tragic story of a young man who died \nattempting to cross Organ Pipe in 2019 \u2014 the same deadly stretch of \ndesert where Rodriguez and the others were rescued. In addition to a \nwife and two young children, Oscar Alfredo Gomez left behind his best \nfriend at a shelter in the Mexican border town of Sonoyta \u2014 26-year-old \nFrancisco. It was rare, Rodriguez told me, that she found a Salvadoran \nin as dire of straits as Francisco. She insisted upon meeting the young \nman.RelatedMass Immigration Prosecutions on the Border Are Currently on Hold. What Comes Next Is Uncertain.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis\n could be my son,\u201d Rodriguez told herself last August, when the two \nfinally met. \u201cI have to help him.\u201d From her home in Tucson, Rodriguez \nkept up with Francisco in the weeks that followed, explaining through \ntext messages how she could help him get on his feet if he returned to \nEl Salvador. She implored him not to attempt a crossing \u2014 if anyone \nunderstood the dangers of the desert, it was her. Francisco promised \nthat he wouldn\u2019t do it but in late September, his messages stopped \ncoming. Days passed without word. \u201cI went nuts,\u201d Rodriguez recalled. She\n called every organization she could think of. \u201cI knew he was lost in \nthe desert.\u201d Finally, in early October, she received a call from the \nSalvadoran consulate: Francisco was alive and in U.S. custody at La \nPalma. \u201cThat was, oh my God, the best news ever,\u201d Rodriguez said, but \nwhen she tried to reach Francisco\u2019s uncle \u2014 who was living in the U.S. \nand who Francisco believed would step forward as a legal sponsor \u2014 her \ncalls went unreturned and unanswered. Francisco, it seemed, was on his \nown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rodriguez first came to the U.S. as a traumatized 19-year-old \nwith nobody to turn to, a Mexican family in Tucson took her in. She \nlived with them for more than year. \u201cThey became my second family,\u201d she \nsaid. The kindness she was shown made the life she now lives possible. \nConsidering the situation Francisco was facing, Rodriguez asked the \nlegal team at No More Deaths, with whom she volunteers much of her time,\n if she could step forward as a sponsor for an asylum-seeker. The answer\n she received was yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sitting on a bench in a window-less room in a courthouse in downtown \nTucson, waiting for Francisco\u2019s name to be called, Rodriguez rustled \nthrough her paperwork and took notes when the cases of men she knew came\n up. She winced when a young man she had spoken to the day before \nquietly requested his deportation \u2014 he couldn\u2019t take it anymore, she \nwhispered to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"TUCSON,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"TUCSON,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Detail\n of items that Dora Rodriguez collected in July 2019 from the site where\n she was rescued in 1980 as a young asylum-seeker crossing the Sonoran \nDesert. Rodriguez went back to the location with artist Alvaro Enciso in\n order to lay a cross at the site.Photo: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally,\n the judge read Francisco\u2019s name out loud. Rodriguez sat up tall when \nhis attorney noted her presence in the courtroom, an affirmation of her \nwillingness to act as his legal sponsor \u2014 of all the detainees whose \ncases would be heard that day, Francisco was the only one with a lawyer \nor support network present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez hoped her presence would sway the court to set a bond that \nwould be realistically payable. Her odds were not good \u2014 under Trump, \nICE\u2019s propensity for keeping detainees locked up had exploded, and \nimmigration judges had shown themselves to be crucial allies in the \nagency\u2019s efforts. Francisco\u2019s attorney implored the judge to set bond at\n $3,000. The ICE prosecutor sought a payment of more than three times \nthat. The judge split the difference, setting a $7,000 bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez was elated as she headed for the courthouse elevators \u2014 \nthis was an amount that could conceivably be raised. The question now \nwas how.For\n the people I met, the virus was background noise, barely audible over \nthe roar of the primary emergency: the state of the border itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\n Rodriguez applied herself to the task at hand, the country was slipping\n ever faster into a moment of historic change. The implications of the \ncoronavirus were coming into focus. Deaths in Washington state were \nmounting. The White House was receiving alarming intelligence detailing \nthe threat the Covid-19 posed, though the public wouldn\u2019t learn about \nthe reports until weeks later. Still, for the people I met \u2014 from \nMatamoros to Nogales to Tijuana \u2014 the virus was background noise, barely\n audible over the roar of the primary emergency: the state of the border\n itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I drove out of Tucson on the final weekend of February, bound \nfor the West Coast, news broke of a major federal injunction halting the\n Remain in Mexico program. Across the border, advocates and \nasylum-seekers scrambled to respond. In Matamoros, families staying in \nthe refugee camp headed for the bridge to Brownsville, Texas. The force \nfield the Trump government was using to repel asylum-seekers had gone \ndown \u2014 how long it would last was anybody\u2019s guess. Racing west along \nInterstate 8, I drove straight for Tijuana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was dark by the time the families appeared at the El Chaparral \nport of entry, asylum-seekers from across Central and South America. \nWith children bundled in their warmest winter coats, they hurried down \nthe corridor that led to the U.S. Many of the parents carried plastic \nfolders, stuffed with the critical documents that told their story. \nSeveral clutched printed copies of the injunction. As they approached \nthe port entrance, a friend and fellow reporter read a piece of breaking\n news aloud off his phone: The injunction had been stayed. Remain in \nMexico was back on. A handful of the families with grave medical \nconditions were permitted entry. Most were not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n weekend began with asylum-seekers across the border believing that \nchange had finally come. By Monday, the hope was all but gone. The White\n House was pushing forward with an ambitious plan to achieve a \nlongstanding goal: lockdown of the U.S. border with Mexico. Stephen \nMiller, a senior White House adviser and principle architect of the \npresident\u2019s immigration and border enforcement policies, had been \nangling for way to link immigrants and disease as pretext for closing \noff immigration to the U.S. for years. His trademark fearmongering was \nall over Trump\u2019s first major address on the coronavirus, broadcast from \nthe Oval Office on March 12, which began by establishing that the virus \nwas \u201cforeign<\/a>\u201d before detailing a series of \u201csweeping travel restrictions\u201d and laying blame on China and the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After weeks of ignoring and downplaying the disease, Miller and Trump had returned to the framing they knew best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Pandemic Pretext<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Three days after Trump\u2019s Oval Office address, Rodriguez hosted a pair\n of film screenings at a church in Tucson, showcasing the documentary \nthat had first led her to Francisco\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundraising efforts had been slow-going. If the people of Tucson \ncould just see Francisco\u2019s face and hear his words, Rodriguez thought, \nsurely they would be moved to donate to his release. Unfortunately for \nher, the fundraiser coincided with Gov. Doug Ducey\u2019s declaration of a \nstate of emergency in Arizona. Just seven people showed up for the first\n screening. Disappointed and believing that no one would show up for the\n second, Rodriguez called it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day, the Trump administration suspended all social \nvisits to ICE detention centers. For those on the inside, it meant being\n cut off from the outside world at a moment of skyrocketing fear and \nanxiety, a time when the federal government\u2019s own experts were warning \nthat immigration detention was a \u201ctinderbox\u201d for the spread of Covid-19.\n For Rodriguez, it meant the loss of face-to-face interactions with \npeople she cared about, including Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If she could not physically visit the detention centers, Rodriguez \nreasoned, she would organize a letter-writing campaign to assure the \npeople inside that they had not been forgotten, and she would keep \ntaking their phone calls.Do you have a coronavirus story you want to share? Email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com<\/a> or use one of these secure methods<\/a> to contact a reporter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening\n to desperate people at the end of their rope had always been the most \ndifficult part of Rodriguez\u2019s work. As news of the virus reached the \npeople locked in ICE jails, it became all the more draining. Rodriguez \ncould hear the fear in their voices. With up to 150 people in a single \nunit, the arrival of the virus was not a matter of if, but when. There \nwas no social distancing. Protests were met with retaliation. Meanwhile,\n Rodriguez\u2019s goal of securing Francisco\u2019s freedom was still far out of \nreach. After weeks of fundraising, she had pulled together about $3,000 \nin donations, a healthy sum but still far from what she needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Rodriguez was pressing forward with her humanitarian work, the \nWhite House announced that it would suspend all nonessential travel \nacross the border, citing a rule<\/a> issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the 19 days after the rule was activated, the Border Patrol expelled nearly 10,000 people<\/a>\n from the country, including asylum-seekers, families, and unaccompanied\n children, who in the past would have been protected from due \nprocess-free removal under federal law. For the first time since 1980, \nwhen Rodriguez and her companions fled north, asylum-seekers would be \nsummarily expelled from the country without an opportunity to make their\n case. The interwoven cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, \nbraced to see how the rule would impact their binational lives. \u201cThe \nlatest announcement uses the pandemic as a pretext to advance dangerous \ngoals,\u201d the advocates at the Kino Border Initiative said in a statement.\n \u201cThis is a moment to come together, recognize the ways in which we are \nconnected, and care for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"TUCSON,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"TUCSON,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Attendees watch a screening of the documentary \u201cDeserted\u201d by filmmaker Jason Motlagh at the Grace St. Paul\u2019s Episcopal Church in Tucson, Ariz., during a fundraiser on March 14, 2020 to help raise $7,000 to cover the bond for a young Salvadoran man in ICE detention.Photo: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez\n wasn\u2019t following the day\u2019s news. On the morning Trump announced the \nborder shutdown, she received a call from No More Deaths: The \nhumanitarian group had decided to put up the remaining $4,000 for \nFrancisco\u2019s bond. Overjoyed, Rodriguez collected the donations and \nheaded straight for La Palma. Sitting in her car in the detention center\n parking lot, the hours ticked away. Day turned to night. At \napproximately 9 p.m., a van pulled up. More than a half-dozen men were \npiled inside, shackled at the wrists and ankles, despite the fact that \nall were scheduled for release. Francisco was one of them.The decision to take Francisco in during the middle of a pandemic was logistically complicated but morally straightforward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ICE\n had stuffed the sum total of his belongings into a small plastic bag. \nHe was released without shoelaces or socks, which meant that his first \nstop was the local Walmart. From there, Francisco was taken to his new \nhome, where Rodriguez already had a room ready. He broke down as he took\n the space in. \u201cI just can\u2019t believe I\u2019m out,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe\n I\u2019m here.\u201d Francisco had emerged from La Palma physically and \nemotionally exhausted. For months, he worked in the detention center \nkitchen earning $1 a day. With her children grown and moved out, \nRodriguez shares her small Tucson home with her husband. For the next \ntwo weeks, all three stayed inside, quarantining themselves, talking and\n telling stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Rodriguez, the decision to take Francisco in during the middle of\n a pandemic was logistically complicated \u2014 \u201cWe took the risk,\u201d she \nacknowledged \u2014 but morally straightforward. She didn\u2019t think twice about\n it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systematic Punishment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"ELOY,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dora Rodriguez participates in a car rally \nin front of the CoreCivic detention center in Eloy, Ariz., on April 10, \n2020. Activists demand that federal immigration authorities release all \ndetainees from the CoreCivic detention centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPhoto: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept
\nBy the time Francisco left La Palma, the men in his unit believed that \nthe coronavirus had already arrived. Their fears were soon confirmed. In\n the weeks after Francisco\u2019s release, La Palma and the adjacent Eloy \nDetention Center became two of the country\u2019s leading hot spots for \nconfirmed cases of Covid-19 in ICE custody, with more than 611 confirmed\n cases as of this reporting.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, Rodriguez pulled on a mask and gloves and hopped in a car \nwith her husband. Together, they joined a raucous caravan of more than \n100 vehicles that descended on the detention center. As the \ndemonstrators banged on pots and shouted to the people inside, \nRodriguez\u2019s phone rang \u2014 it was Nicaraguan man, one of Francisco\u2019s \nfriends, who was still locked inside. \u201cDorita!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cWe can \nhear you guys!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day after day in the weeks that followed, ICE\u2019s running tally of \nconfirmed Covid-19 cases grew and grew, just as everyone with the \nfaintest understanding of the agency\u2019s record on controlling infectious \ndisease predicted it would.RelatedAmid Coronavirus, Trump Moved to Expel Immigrants \u2014 But Border Patrol Didn\u2019t Test Any of Them<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside\n the detention centers\u2019 walls, advocates fought an uphill battle against\n soaring bonds and a system already predisposed to detention and \ndeportation. Along the way, Francisco practiced his English with a woman\n Rodriguez knew from the humanitarian aid community. He spent a good \ndeal of time in the kitchen, showcasing his cooking skills for Rodriguez\n and her husband. They bought him a bicycle, and he began to make \nfriends in Tucson. Eventually, Rodriguez helped Francisco find an \napartment and on June 1, he struck out on his own. He\u2019s hoping to \nreceive a work permit this month. For Rodriguez, the work goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At both Eloy and La Palma, more than 100 people in ICE custody wrote desperate letters in May<\/a> and June<\/a>,\n undercutting the agency\u2019s claims that the coronavirus was under control\n and begging that they not be left to die. They described the numerous \nhealth conditions that placed those in custody at heightened risk and \ndetailed detention center officials use of tear gas and pepper balls to \ncoerce compliance from detainees. \u201cIt\u2019s so heartbreaking getting those \nletters,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cYou know they went through hell in there, and\n they\u2019re still there and we\u2019re still fighting to get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ELOY,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
DONATE NOW<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"ELOY,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Activists from across Arizona hold a car rally in front of the CoreCivic detention center in Eloy, Ariz., on April 10, 2020.Photo: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\n systematic and it\u2019s punishment,\u201d she added. \u201cThey want to break them. \nThey want to break the pattern of them coming and asking for \nprotection.\u201d In the days of the Sanctuary Movement, asylum advocates \nreferred to the bonds immigration authorities placed on asylum-seekers \nas \u201cransom money.\u201d Forty years later, they remain one of the biggest \nchallenges Rodriguez and the organizations she volunteers with face. In a\n conversation mid-summer, Rodriguez told me about the case of another \nyoung man from El Salvador that she was working on. \u201cHe\u2019s only 19,\u201d she \nsaid. \u201cHis bond is $30,000.\u201dPaying bonds remains one of the biggest challenges Rodriguez and the organizations she volunteers with face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere\n in the hell are these people going to get this money?\u201d she asked. \u201cEven\n us, as volunteers, as humanitarians, it\u2019s impossible. I\u2019m willing to \nsign my credit, my bank account, whatever, and I tell them, I will sign \nto get you out, but the down payment is $10,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is that an enormous amount of money for small, \nvolunteer-driven organizations to pull together, but it must now also be\n raised at a time when tens of millions of Americans are out of work and\n millions of others are justifiably worried about their own financial \nsecurity and the health and well-being of their own families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"TUCSON,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dora Rodriguez spends time with her grandson, Elijah, in her home in Tucson, Ariz., on March 13, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPhoto: Kitra Cahana\/MAPS for The Intercept<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n challenge is immense and it would be easy to look out at a network of \nlargely for-profit jails that chooses to lock away tens of thousands of \npeople, many of them asylum-seekers seeking refuge, in the middle of \nglobal pandemic and conclude that nobody cares, but Rodriguez believes \nthat doing so would be a mistake. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole army behind these \npeople,\u201d she said. She is not wrong. The volunteers who pour time and \nenergy into a collective effort to resist the detention and deportation \nmachine are as much a fact of life on the border in the past four years \nas anything Stephen Miller has accomplished so far. In the end, their \nefforts might not be enough, but they are there and they are trying \u2014 \nthey were doing it before Trump came to office and they will continue \nthe work, if they must, when he\u2019s gone. \u201cThat\u2019s what really keeps me \ngoing,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cI am not in this alone. I do this with a \ncommunity. I would never be able to do this alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Fourth of July weekend, Rodriguez returned to the stretch of \ndesert where she was rescued, and where the 13 men, women, and children \nshe was traveling with lost their lives 40 years ago. With the sun \nblazing overhead, she retraced their steps the best she could and left a\n cross to honor their memories. \u201cIt was a promise that we\u2019re going to \ncontinue,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue the fight. We cannot \nstop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DONATE NOW<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With the virus ripping through ICE facilities, Rodriguez\u2019s phone hasn\u2019t stopped ringing since we parted ways earlier this year \u2014 she estimates that she receives an average of 20 calls from people locked inside the detention centers each day. Not knowing if or when those individuals might call again, if it will be the last call they will ever make, she finds it impossible not to answer. She tells each of them the same thing: \u201cYou are not alone. We are here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Salvavision<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published on The Intercept Ryan DevereauxSeptember 5 2020, 4:00\u00a0a.m. A short walk from the border, in the Mexican city of Nogales, Sonora, sits a modest building packed\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[231,232,233,234,235,236,237,238,239,240],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762492,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/762492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}