Asylum Seekers in the Land of Promise
A True Story
Author’s note: Around the world millions are migrating. This is the true story of one family. The names have been changed as well as details and circumstances that might identify the family.
It was well past midnight and probably closer to 2 in the morning when the crisp automatic weapons gunfire broke out. Then the flares went up. It had been Rigoberto’s third day in the kill or be killed camp. He had been working with his younger brother Jaime in the family lemon orchards when they were kidnapped around noon. They were quickly separated after being forced into minivans and driven blindfolded and bound with zip ties. The vans were full of other young men from their village near Apatzingan in the highlands of Michoacan not far from the border with the State of Jalisco.
It is a scenic landscape of hamlets called ranchitos surrounded by cattle grazing pastures and orchards of lemons and avocados. The vast skies are a light piercing blue by day and a fiery sea of stars on clear nights. The area was dotted with meth labs when the war on drugs began in 2006 when the boys were toddlers. Over time the cartels had run their own candidates for city council and the courts. They had insinuated themselves into every fiber of society and imposed their own 20% tax on produce at the packing houses. The area had now become a manufacturing hub for the latest cash crop narcotic- fentanyl. The ingredients were legally imported through the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas and transported up to the Valle Caliente region of northern Michoacan. A warm tropical area 323 meters or 1,086 feet above sea level where the Valdez family had lived for decades. The emphasis was on farm work and education was a secondary priority. Rigoberto, one of the best educated had left school weeks before finishing la preparatoria – high school – because he was needed in the orchards. Others had made it only to third or fourth grade and were functionally illiterate.
In the early summer of 2021, Margarita and her mother-in-law Consuelo moved quickly inside the store pulling young Carolina along as they filled their mesh shopping bags with essentials. For days now Cartel A had fought off Cartel B and the Guardia Nacional was holed up in its fortified garrison with no interest in stepping into the streets of Las Hadas. They stayed not out of cowardice but bided their time until they would be sent to double-cross one side or the other. In a striking example of Ibn Kaldoun’s famous saying that geography is destiny, the village controlled a key approach to Apatzingan. The combatants used the same automatic weapons used to massacre children in American schools. Barettas and large magazine assault rifles legally purchased in the United States that sprayed bullets so rapidly they only needed to be pointed in a general direction and waived like a water hose spraying death, mayhem, and terror. Major crossroads and highway junctions were blocked by commandeered beer and soft drink trucks. Control was maintained by mortars and light artillery. With their immense wealth, the cartels could afford the best armaments and munitions. In the summer of 2021 unlike 2023 there were no drones dropping explosives or mines.
Controlling Las Hadas and the other communities in the area was essential for control of Apatzingan. Today residents had been allowed to go shopping under a shaky truce. As they were leaving the store, nine-year-old Bernardo, a fast lanky kid with an uncanny ability to dodge the crossfire of standard issue Kalashnikovs, ran up to them. Looking both ways he whispered his message in a rush and took office. Rigoberto and Jaime had been taken. They were last seen being pulled into a minivan that threw up dust as it careened out of the orchard. The women and little Carolina raced home seeking some semblance of safety. They stopped short at the rod iron gate. The lock and chain were on the ground and the gates hung askew. Their belongings had been thrown in the courtyard and 6 men with guns confronted them. They were told to leave and never come back.
The night was a very dark slate grey with stars forming patches between the trees. Rigoberto saw his chance to escape in the melee. They had been told repeatedly in their daily weapons drills – “Te vas a matar o te vas a ser matado.” You will kill or be killed. Occasional flares lit up the sky and Rigoberto could see rock formations and ravines in split seconds before the blue splotches shocking his retinas and the blasts assaulting his eardrums left him blind and deaf for long seconds as he inched his way down. The stars started to fade. With the coming of first light, the fighting had stopped until tomorrow night as the dead were counted. Jumping from the hillside slope the highway asphalt, firm and flat, was more than welcome when his feet landed on it. A few minutes later a pickup truck slowed down long enough for Rigoberto to jump in the back. Jaime’s escape and return was traumatic, and he has not been able to talk about it.
When the boys made it to town, they were told to go to their grandfather’s home. A plan had already been made. A family friend who ran a taxi – a permitted means of vital transport, if you had the right connections and cash - could get them through the checkpoints at night. Margarita’s ex-husband lived in another city. Jaime was too traumatized to think of making the flight to the border and went to stay with his father.
Their relatives in the border city to which they fled had no room for them. The city was awash in a sea of refugees from Venezuela, Central America, Mexico, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti. The camps close to the wall were not unlike homeless encampments in American cities but much larger, replete with murder, rape, and enslavement. Churches and local charities were overwhelmed. Legions of 9- to 15-year-olds traveled on their own sent to an uncertain fate by parents despairing of their future in their own towns and villages. They were trying to save their children from being kidnapped by the gangs or disappeared by the military. Some had relatives in the United States and the children carried phone numbers inked on their forearms with permanent marker evoking the holocaust, that ever present evil of another bonfire of the innocents.
A friend of friend had a one room house occupied by an elderly woman who welcomed them. They all jammed into it for three days. Sponsors had been lined up and they were able to be paroled from deportation at the point of entry and given asylum papers. Immigration officials at the ports of entry were overwhelmed and perplexed by regulations that changed almost monthly. The actual process and the outcome can be arbitrary because following the policies and procedures for asylum seekers was far from consistent. Fate smiled on them grimly and grudgingly. Their passports and identification documents were taken, and Margarita had an ankle bracelet attached to her small ankle that was too large and immediately started to abrade her skin. An athletic and confident woman now struggled with a prominent and painful limp. Then again, not everyone got ankle bracelets since it appears to depend on the supply, their location and the discretion of the officials.
Yet they were the lucky ones. Several months later they were struggling to get work on farms where the demand for workers often outpaces the need for work authorizations. An immigration official at a check in office decided that Margarita was not going to melt into the general population and removed the ankle bracelet. But they still had no permission to work and were forced into the underground economy. The had applied for their permits but after 18 months they was still no word or even an acknowledgement that they had applied. They lived in a small but immaculate fifth wheel next to a horse corral in the vast interior of California with no heat or air-conditioning for $1,100 per month. Reports from home got from bad to worse. Family members in Mexico died of COVID and Margarita’s parents were ailing. Before she fled Margarita had seen them every day. While they both cried on the phone, her father told Margarita to not return under any circumstances since children were now being kidnapped.
It was one of those late-night calls. “¿Es usted el diácono que ayuda con el asilo?” “Are you the deacon who helps with asylum?” “Well, not really but I know some people.” So, I started making some calls. There is a shortage of immigration lawyers who handle removal defense and an even greater shortage of those who can handle the fun house chaos of asylum law. It’s hard to find an attorney even if you can afford the customary $15,000. So, I made the best deal that I could. A pro bono (free) lawyer agreed to guide me on the major points of the application but would not agree to represent them in court since he had more clients than he could handle. We worked on the applications. The directions were not always clear. There are certain things you should state but others were better left for court appearances. We got through the first year with my sitting silently in the back of the court and the family doing their best to answer routine questions at calendar hearings to schedule future appearances.
They had to go through biometric imaging and data to document their identity. Attorneys told me that was a good sign since it meant that their applications had been received. I was learning on the fly but most of the time I felt like I was trapped in a pinball machine. The applications took about 90 hours and another 10 to format in the fillable pdf which was buggy. How someone without a good education in English, experience with forms, and legal guidance, could fill out these documents and all of the required attachments was inconceivable.
Immigration programs and charities – even those with state funding – would not take on the case because they did not feel that the case was strong enough. Since they had limited money and capacity and had to show results, they were only willing to take on slam dunk cases. The law is written to help people in certain protected classes: tribes or ethnic groups, social classes such as educated elites, family members of dissidents, occupational groups, homosexuals, child soldiers, members or former members of the police or military who might be targeted for assassination, and women. In other words, your government had to have a specific policy or practice of persecuting people who belonged to special groups. There was no general provision for fleeing your home and loved ones at the point of a gun.
I still needed an attorney. the vast majority of asylum seekers do not have attorneys. They have a 95% rejection rate. With an attorney, the odds are about 50 / 50. Even then there is still the luck of the draw since some judges have very low pass rates and others are more generous. Immigration courts are administrative courts under Homeland Security and are not part of the actual judicial system. After a lot of prayer and the attempted bribery of several saints, (I plead no contest), I found a very competent and experienced attorney who drastically reduced his fees. This arrangement is called “low bono”. The next miracle was the money. Fortunately, the usual suspects were still taking my calls. I was able to put the money together with help from a wealthy Catholic parish that has a six figure emergency needs fund and a local community group.
Yet, the Galvez family is only beginning a tentative and uncertain new life. New regulations may make “plea bargains” possible in which asylum seekers who do not meet the strict criteria can stay but without a path to permanent residence or citizenship if the courts feel that they will be harmed if they are returned.
Almost two years to the day that Margarita and her children were forced to flee, the cartels decided to make a clean sweep of the villages and forced out her extended family. The army will not let the families tend to their orchards or livestock since the land has been mined by drones. The cartels have also purchased kamikaze drones and are bombing their opponents. Since her ex-husband had been a rural policeman years ago, he has been forced to flee with Jaime. Instant messaging images show their homes being looted and vandalized. Most have made it up to the border cities. They are not alone. Their well to do neighbors, the formerly prosperous land and business owners have also fled to the same cities. Margarita is distraught with grief and wonders how her loved one will get across the border to safety and what they will do if they get here.
Wait! There’s More!
Prominent Republicans now favor – another – War on Mexico. (The first one was from 1846 to 1848.) Trump and DeSantis are leading a chorus on the right to intervene in Mexico to take out the cartels. Trump narrowly avoided doing this during his term but was dissuaded from using missiles. Invading Mexico or strong arming the Mexican Government would be a move that would galvanize the Mexican people to resist a second invasion and make common cause with the cartels. The economic consequences for the United States would be very harmful since Mexico is now the United States’ largest trading partner and a vital center of manufacturing for American companies. At best such a war would be like U.S drug interdiction in Colombia. At worst it would be a next door repeat of Vietnam with hundreds of thousands pushing against the wall. Tragically, Margarita and her family are just so much flotsam among the waves of migrants around the world forced by war, drug trafficking, and climate change to look for safe harbor in El Norte the land of promise.
More Information
On the front lines in the Tierra Caliente: Mexico’s incessant conflict (mexiconewsdaily.com)
DeSantis: I’d strike drug cartels in Mexico ‘on day one’ - POLITICO.
Trump downplays prospect of war with Mexico over fight against cartels - KLST San Angelo, September 14, 2023
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