Alexandro. Good news from Stewart

In my first Stewart blog I mentioned that I got to vicariously experience a father and son reunion while I was visiting. I was told by our host from El Refugio that this was a rare event for them to witness.

Alexandro, as before, not his real name, is an asylum seeker from Cuba, now living in Miami. Through his broken English and my broken Spanish we he was able to share that his 18 year old son Ricky had been picked up by ICE and held in detention for 72 days. The first few weeks were at the Folkston Detention Center south of Brunswick GA. As an aside, Folkston is run by GEO Group, another private prison firm similar to CoreCivic, which runs Stewart.

Alexandro arrived at Stewart first thing that Thursday morning to pick up his son who was scheduled to be released that day. Alexandro had driven all night from Miami. He and his son are asylum seekers from Cuba. Alexandro is working as a truck driver while he and his son are awaiting asylum hearings. I could not get a clear understanding of why his son had been picked up, but he had been cleared to be released pending their hearings. Our El Refugio host said they had a pretty good chance of having their asylum since they were coming from Cuba.

We ended up having to wait a few hours so complete our visits. Alexandro was in and out while he waited for his son to be released. It was sort of like my experiences with hospital discharges. The nurse tells you at 8:00 a.m. you’re going home “as soon as we finish the paperwork”, and by 5:30 that evening you are finally walking out the door.

As we were leaving at about 3:00 we saw an ICE agent escorting a very tall young Hispanic man through the gate. Everyone in our group had spoke with Alexandro and I think we all immediately recognized him as Ricky. Alexandro walked out of the door from the waiting area and they exchanged big, long hugs on the walkway between the door and the inside gate. I wish I could have taken a picture, but as I mentioned, no cameras allowed. Even the CoreCivic guard that was walking out with us said that doesn’t happen enough. We all clapped and gave Alexandro and his son big thumbs up and we all walked back to our cars with smiles on our faces. 

Taking tomorrow off for the July 4^th holiday. Back Thursday with “Stewart: If it quacks like a duck”.

Peace and freedom, for all of us, this Independence Day holiday.

Amen