Welcome To America-- A Guest Post By Melissa San Miguel

Melissa San Miguel currently serves as one of California Young Democrats Latino Caucus, Northern California Regional Directors and Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party Region 1 Chicano Latino Caucus. This opinion piece was written after conducting interviews as part of her work with the National Center for Youth Law. Melissa can be reached at melissa.san.miguel@gmail.com

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

-Emma Lazarus

In my office hangs a drawing made by one of the most beautiful little girls I have ever seen. She had big, piercing brown eyes; curly, dark brown hair; and a quiet, knowing air. She had been dexterous enough to draw a neat, little house with a chimney coming out of the roof. Her graceful drawing struck me. She was two years old and living in a prison-like family detention center with her mother, whom I was interviewing.

I think of her, each time I look at that drawing, and of the other kids I spoke with when I traveled to the Texas border. As part of my work at the National Center for Youth Law, I interviewed the children seeking refuge whom you hear about in the news. And I am forever changed by what I saw and heard in the detention centers there.

The McAllen Border Patrol Station is one of the many stations used to hold children and families after they are arrested at the border. The station smelled like feces and looked like a dungeon. Here, I spoke to a 10-year-old boy who was sitting alone in a cement cell. As we walked out of the cell to the interview room, his mother suddenly appeared from a separate cell carrying a baby in her arms. The boy ran to hug his mother and she asked me, as any mom would, where I was taking her son.

As I began to explain to her that I was there to investigate the detention conditions, another cell door opened and a teenage boy ran to the mother and younger boy. I soon learned this whole family had been separated in different cells. It was the first time in several days that they had been able to physically hold each other. The mother told me she had fled her country with her sons because she was afraid for their lives. Her teenage son had refused to cooperate with the Maras gang and was beaten as punishment. He lifted up his shirt to show me the marks the gang left along the right side of his abdomen. His mom was afraid they would kill her eldest son and harm her 10-year-old son, too. The boys wept, and she continued speaking with tears in her eyes. She shared that she herself had been a survivor of sexual violence and the perpetrator had just moved back to her town. She was afraid for her life, but most of all, for her sons’ lives. All she wanted was for them to be safe here in the United States.

Many children in the Rio Grande Valley are then taken to the McAllen Processing Center. We entered this building through a side door. As I made my way through the facility, on my right was a table full of telephones. They were all lined up, with no one around, as if there were no plan to use them. When I turned to my left, I saw faces. Not just one face, but two, three, four and then many more. All these little faces stared at me from behind a tall, chain-link fence, but we were indoors. And those faces were of scared kids. Kids in cages.

As I surveyed the giant warehouse we had just entered, the place reminded me of a giant dog kennel. Girls were placed in one cage and boys in another. I spotted a few boys in a separate cage and wondered why they weren’t with the others. A teenage boy I spoke with explained why.

The Border Patrol agents told him that the kids from Reynosa (Mexico) were too rough and could not play well with other kids, so they would not be allowed to play at all. Even though he had never harmed another child there, the guards told him he was bad and refused to let him play. Border Patrol didn't treat any of the boys from other countries better. It was more about who was treated worse. Indeed, he shared with me that when the children complained of the cold, the guards would laugh at them and say they would send the kids to Alaska where it was even colder. Like McAllen Station, the warehouse was so cold that many of the children referred to it as a “hielera,” or icebox.

At the Processing Center, I also spoke with a teenaged girl from El Salvador who had a lovely smile. She had just arrived and felt so cold. She had only a pair of flip-flops over socks to keep her feet warm. Border Patrol agents had thrown away her shoes because they were “too dirty,” and had given her black flip-flops instead. She didn’t have a jacket to stay warm, and as we spoke, she shared with me that she was in much pain. She was on her period and felt embarrassed to ask a Border Patrol agent for a pain reliever. There was only one female Border Patrol agent who worked at the facility, and she wasn’t there at that time. Every other agent guarding the boys and girls was a man.

The next day, at the prison-like family detention center in Karnes City, Texas, I spoke with the mothers of young children. Many of the mothers had been victims of physical and sexual violence, often at the hands of men. Most were afraid for their lives and their childrens’ lives and were making the perilous journey to the United States so they could simply exist in this world.

Another family detained at Karnes described to me their experience upon entering the U.S. The mom, teenage boy, and young daughter had also been detained at the McAllen Border Patrol station and had been separated from each other in different cells there. They told me that Border Patrol agents would use a metal tube to bang on the cell doors and walls regularly to prevent them from sleeping. When children asked Border Patrol agents the time, they would tell them, “you don’t need to know.” The first night there, the cell was so packed that mother and daughter did not sleep at all. They had to stand up the entire night.

These children and their mothers had fled their home countries, survived the journey to the U.S.-Mexico border and once they had made it safely here, our government was treating them like animals. Many would not likely have an immigration attorney to help them through the process and would be deported-- to die.

I felt ashamed, ashamed of my own country. I am a U.S.-born daughter of Peruvian immigrants. Growing up, my Dad often spoke about the greatness of America. I wondered how our country could treat human beings-- let alone children-- this way. How could our government’s response be to try to break their spirits and keep them ignorant of their legal rights so that they would give up and sign a deportation order? It hurts to know my government is doing this to refugees and that our tax money funds it all.

Our country must do better by these women and children. What is happening to them along the border is not right, and our very own humanity is at stake. Many of the refugees have been made to feel less than by our government for being female, for having dark skin, for being young, for being from a Latin American country. They have confronted similar insults to their person back home, too. These are strong human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. After listening to their stories, I have never felt prouder of being a Latina daughter of immigrants with brown skin and dark features, and fluent in Spanish. Our country must live up to its ideals of justice, fairness, and freedom. I grew up believing in them. The struggle for immigrants' rights breathes new life into those American values. They are worth fighting for, and so are the children knocking at our door.

From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”