Two more families

The next people I met at Stewart were Kelly and Jimmy. Kelly and her husband Juan had been together over a decade and their young son Jimmy was there with Kelly to visit his dad.

John had been in ICE custody since August 2017. She did not offer any details about how he came to be there and I didn’t ask. John had been in a detention facility near their home in Charleston until recently, when he was transferred to Stewart. Detainees are often transferred around to maintain bed occupancy commitments to the private contractors (usually CoreCivic and GEO Group). No consideration is given to where their families are located.

Marie, our host from El Refugio said that it’s not uncommon for families to drive through the night from hundreds of miles away to visit detainees over the weekend. Detainees are allowed one visitor per week, and since the visitation week runs from Sunday to Saturday they can get in two visits over one weekend. Visitation hours run from 8 to 8 Friday through Sunday and there are five windows for family/friend visitation. This means visits are allowed for up to 65 detainee each day during the weekend. With nearly 2,000 men in custody, weekends are scheduled out months in advance.

Kelly and Jimmy made the five hour drive down from Charleston, but for a moment feared they would not be able to meet with John because Kelly could not find his “A number”. Detainees are assigned an A# that is required for visits, letters and for looking up detainees in the ICE database. Kelly could not find the A# and the guards refused to look it up in their system. She was afraid she had made a five hour trip for nothing. Fortunately, Jimmy was able to find the number in the car and they were able to visit Juan.

Shortly after I arrived, sisters Annie and Emma came in to visit Candace’s partner of 12 years and four kids, Mateo. They traveled down from North Georgia Thursday morning with Emma and Meteo’s four children. They had to wait several hours to see Mateo, all the while Emma was in great pain from surgery two days before. She had been released from the hospital on Wednesday and they made the five hour drive Thursday because it was the only day Annie could get off work to drive her sister and the kids. Wife, two days post op, sister, and four kids in a hot, crowded waiting room, nothing to pass the time, no snacks for the kids, and a five hour drive back to north Georgia to look forward to.

And worst of all, Mateo was “lost” to his family for a month. His wife said on several occasions that his location was wrong in the ICE system. So for a month, his family had no idea where to find him. When she reported this to the guard at the front desk she said that was an ICE issue. Nothing for her to do.

I can’t imagine how panicked Emma was for her adult husband Mateo. Now try to imagine you’re a parent or a young child in that same situation. Seriously. Get your empathy on and take 30 seconds to ponder that before you continue…

By the time I left at 3pm, Emma and the kids were still waiting to see Mateo and had the five hour drive ahead of them. I’m looking for the clean closing here, but there isn’t one.

Next up, the story of a grandfather in ICE custody.

Peace and amen.