Deported

A few months ago one of my former students, Roberto, started making preparations to go to the US illegally. His family had people living there and his brother had returned the year before. So he left and that was that. And then all of the sudden he was back! Today, I caught up with him....

The first question I asked him was, "How far did you make it?" (Roberto doesn't know any English and he actually did quite poorly in my class so this whole conversation was in Spanish.) He said he made it Houston and that's where they got him and all the others he was riding in a truck with. He ran but ICE caught him and every other person in the truck. They took him to a detention center in a small town I didn't recognize. I asked him how long he was in detention. He said," Oh, 18 days. It was much faster than the last time." I laughed to myself. I hadn't realized this was not his first time being deported. I read recently that they were expediting the deportation process by doing proceedings in big groups. I asked if this is what happened with him. He said it was and also went on to explain that next time he hoped to have a paper saying he was a political refugee. (He's not.) He seemed to think that that was an effective way to get out of being deported. He was going to consult the Social Studies teacher at school for help.

My third question was, "How did they treat you?" He said, "Bad. You know why? They hit us. The people in your country are pretty racist huh? They treated us like criminals....tying up our arms and our legs." I didn't like hearing this and now looking back, I have more questions which I will have to ask later.

Finally, we started talking about how he was going for his third try in January. For whatever reason, I started to think about how I would do it if I were him. I told him that I thought he should leave the group when he got to McAllen. (They cross at Reynosa, apparently. Once they see the checkpoint they get off the truck and walk for 3 days AROUND the checkpoint.) It seemed to me that riding in a truck of 20 illegals on the highway to Houston was asking to get caught. I told him it would probably be better to take a bus in McAllen. He asked if they check papers on the buses. It then occurred to me that I had never once ridden a Greyhound in my life so this advice was probably bad. I was telling him he should just hang out and find a nice person in McAllen to help him. They all speak Spanish! This too though had its problems....

Soon, we were talking about me moving back to Texas. He, of course, started to ask what would happen if I picked him up in McAllen. Me?! Oh dear Lord. I told him I could probably be arrested too. "Even if you tell them I work for you?" Yes, because then they'd ask for my papers for you. It was at this point that I settled on a church. Find a church! People in churches will always help.

After awhile it became clear that I was not going to be able to help him and my advice was shoddy at best. It does, however, remind me that I need to talk to the local Coyote and learn more about his side of the process...