This secretly taken photo comes from a Texas courtroom during mass trial where dozens of immigrants are chained and tried all at once. Hereâs whatâs happening:
· Lawyers Are Representing Dozens of People At Once (Literally)
What you see is somewhere between 20 and 40-something people, all triple-shackled, not to each other but individually, their hands in handcuffs chained to their waists, and their feet shackled. And they clunk and clang into court. I mean, thereâs this clanging sound of chains. And they go through these mass processes in less than an hour, usually. And they oftenâthey are instructed to answer in groups or answer en masse. So youâll hear like 40 people being asked a question, and theyâll say, âSĂ,â all at once, or theyâll say, âNo.â And itâs justâitâs really uncanny. Itâs shocking. It doesnât feel like due process. One after one after one after one after one, with only one lawyer, they plead guilty: âCulpable,â âculpable,â âculpable,â âculpable.â
Theyâre getting somewhere between seven and 10 minutes of counsel right before the proceedings.Â
There were 60 defendants, and they were split into 20âinto three groups of 20. And so, each group of 20 had a lawyer. And I interviewed one lawyer who told me that, of his 20, not one of them had been separated from a child, and not one of them had an asylum claim or a credible fear claim. So, then, in the third group, I was able to interview the attorney, who spoke Spanish, unlike the first one, and seemed very concerned about the immigration issues. And he told me that, of the 20 that I saw him representing, 10 of them had been separated from a total of 15 children, including one woman who was separated from three children. And, you know, he obtained that information by just really speaking with these people.
· International Law is Being Broken
Denying people the right to request asylum:
Traditionally, you go to the port of entry, and youâwhich is this big building at the bottom, you know, in Brownsville. Itâs the big curved bridge. You go to the bottom of the bridge to the U.S. side, to the port of entry, and you tell the agents that want to request asylum. And that is your legal right. Youâre in the United States at that point, and you request asylum.
So, whatâs been happening up and down the border isâand this has been going on probably for at least a year and a half, that Iâm aware of, anywayâis that theyâre putting agents up at the top of the bridge, because, you know, thereâs sort of an invisible line, which is often marked with a plaque, but thereâs a line dividing the United States and Mexico. So, they wantâwhat the government wants at this point is for people not to be able to step into the United States at that invisible line, because then they canât apply for asylum. And so theyâve got these agents at the top of the bridge, and theyâre standing there. And theyâre asking everybody who theyâre suspicious aboutâyou know, and suspicious of notâyou know, of maybe theyâre going to apply for asylum, but asking people for their documents. And then they wonât let people go into the United States. So, I mean, itâs almost like theyâre not even in Mexico. Technically, theyâre in Mexico, but theyâre like six inches from the United States. And thatâs illegal. I mean, thatâs against American law, and itâs against international law. But thatâs whatâs happening up and down the border.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said in a statement that the U.S. governmentâs separating children from their parents as they seek asylum is âa flagrant violation of their human rights. Doing so in order to push asylum seekers back into dangerous situations where they may face persecution is also a violation of U.S. obligations under refugee law.â
· Border Patrol is Lying About Violence
Multiplying the number of assaults:
CBP claimed that there were 454 assaults on agents nationwide in 2016, a 20 percent increase from the previous year. In 2017, according to CBP, there were 786 assaults, a 73 percent spike from the previous year. But The Intercept obtained data from CBP showing that the agency was using an unconventional method to count assaults.
I started investigating the claims the Border Patrol has been making for about, oh, the past several months, that itâs a very dangerous job and that their assault statistics were way, way up from last year. And I got data from the Border Patrol which showed that, in fact, assaults were down and injuries are down, but they were using this accounting methodâthey were counting in this very strange, unconventional way.Â
And, for example, what I was told from law enforcement people is that, you know, police and law enforcement officials usuallyâlike, if somebody is assaulted, thatâs considered one assault. I mean, somebody could throw seven rocks at you, and that would beâand youâre one agent, so thatâs counted as one assault. But the Border Patrol wasâor still is, I guessâmultiplying the number of agents assaultedâand, by the way, an assault doesnât necessarily cause an injury, and in most cases with the Border Patrol it doesnâtâbut multiplying the number of agents assaulted by the number of perpetrators and the number of weapons.Â
So, the example that they gave me was six agents assaulted by seven perpetrators who used a water bottle, a rock and a tree branch. So, when you multiply and multiply and multiply, you get 126 assaults. Conventionally, that would be counted as six assaults.
Immigrants who are tried and acquitted for assault are also included in these inflated statistics:
A recent trial in south Texas provides a good case in point. In November, Border Patrol agent Steven Yackanin chased Eliseo Luis GarcĂa, a young Guatemalan migrant, through a field near the Rio Grande. The area was only about a mile from where Claudia Patricia GĂłmez GonzĂĄlez would later be shot to death.
After Luis was apprehended and taken to lockup, another immigrant there noticed that Luis had blood coming out of his ear. Luis explained that he had been trying to escape and that, as a result, Yackanin and some other agents beat him up.
Yackanin claimed it was he who was assaulted by Luis, and he filled out a Department of Labor form to authorize medical care. He was diagnosed with an elbow sprain and a bruise.
Luis was charged with assault and went to trial. His public defender attorney introduced into evidence photographs of the immigrant and the Border Patrol agent, each standing next to a door with markings. The markings suggest that the Guatemalan immigrant stood about 5 feet tall and weighed perhaps 100 pounds. Yackanin was a full head taller and appeared 60 pounds heavier. The jury apparently believed Luis. He was acquitted.
Even so, the Border Patrol will likely fold the charges against Luis into its fiscal year 2018 assault statistics. Likewise for Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzålez, the young Guatemalan woman shot last week. Her death will probably be analyzed as the outcome of a purported assault against a Border Patrol agent.
· Parents and Children are Being Separated
Public defenders unable to find their defendantâs children:
One woman who spoke about her children in open court was from Honduras. âIs my little girl going to go with me when I get deported?â she asked Morgan.
âYour Honor,â interjected Jeff Wilde, director of the Federal Public Defenderâs office in Brownsville, âboth she and the man next to her have their children with them. They had a credible fear claim [for asylum]. ⊠Their children have been separated from them, and Iâve been unable to figure out where their children are at this point.â
A young father then said heâd been separated from his 6-year-old and was very worried.
Threats and taking children away:
Another parent who appeared in Morganâs court was from a Central American country that provides no meaningful protection to women and children who are victims of homicidal domestic violence. She asked for her identity to be concealed, because she fears retaliation by the U.S. government. We will call her Delia. Before fleeing her country, she was for years beaten up, cut, assaulted with guns, and threatened with death by her partner. He also threatened to kill their young child. When she hid in another city, he found her and dragged her home.
Delia said she fled her country weeks ago and went on the road to Mexico, eventually crossing the Rio Grande with her child on an inner tube. She saw three Border Patrol agents watching her and floated in their direction, so she could turn herself in.
Delia said that when she arrived later that night at the hielera â the Border Patrol processing office â she told the officers that she and her child needed asylum. She described the beatings and assaults and death threats. âOh, come on!â she said the officers snickered. âYou and everyone else with that old story!â
âYouâre going to be deported,â she remembers them telling her. âAnd your child will stay here.â The next morning, the child was taken. Delia fell on her knees during the removal, wailing and begging not to be separated. Officials looked on indifferently, she said, as her child screamed incessantly.
In Brownsville, Judge Morgan also started alluding to biblical matters. It was Thursday, the fourth day of âzero toleranceâ in his court, and defendants were telling their stories. The judge had just asked Holly DâAndrea, the assistant U.S. attorney handling illegal entry prosecutions that day, if it were true that families were being reunited in detention. DâAndrea sounded uncertain, but answered that she thought it was true.
âTell you what,â the judge said slowly, with a hard edge in his voice, âif itâs not, then there are a lot of folks that have some answering to do.
Iâd suggest reading these in full:
Hidden Horrors of âZero Toleranceâ - Mass Trials and Children Taken From Their Parents
Border Patrol Continues to Exaggerate Danger to Agents to Justify Violence Against Immigrants
âHidden Horrorsâ: Reporter Debbie Nathan on Mass Trials & Kids Separated from Parents at the Border
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