"They told me I almost died. 20 minutes longer and I wouldn't have made it."

Last week Esteban was collapsed in the shade of a mesquite bush along the highway 21 miles north of one of the more corrupt, fraudulent borders in a U.S. history not lacking for these  (In 1853, Mexican President Antonio de Santa Anna had the Spanish language newspapers from New York that reported the deal swiped off the streets so that Mexicans wouldn't learn of the negotiations, or the kickbacks he'd receive.)

The first Border Patrol truck whizzed by. Esteban had been vomiting food, then water, then blood. He wanted to be caught. The next car was civilian.  Esteban, 5'3", struggled to wave them down but they drove by. Shortly after that the border patrol returned and he flagged them down. When they saw him retching blood after drinking from the water bottle they gave him, they called for assistance and soon he had an IV in his arm.

Border patrol drove him to Tucson.  A few days later he was back in [town omitted to protect Esteban], talking to me on a cell phone, the first time I'd heard his voice since he was deported in July, I think. I lose track. Esteban's been deported so many times even he loses track.

Here's a slightly edited transcript of our conversation. (Esteban's so close to the border that Verizon thinks he is in the U.S. and his Tucson phone card works.) We spoke Monday, September 23, the same day I read the AP story on all the deaths in the desert from people crossing in Texas instead of Arizona.  But of course it's still very easy to die in the deserts of Arizona as well.

JS: Where are you? 

ET: [], Sonora on top of this mountain so I can get this line. Otherwise I can't hear. 

JS: How long does it take for you to go up the mountain? 

ET: Just four minutes. It's a small mountain. 

JS: What do you see? 

ET: The border. I'm right here on a little mountain and I can see the border on the other side. Just the border, just a little border on []. The line is right there, some bushes and a metal fence. It's big, about 30 feet tall. 

JS: Where are you staying? 

ET: I'm staying w. these people right now. Not the people I was staying with before. There are no jobs right here. This is a little town. They don't have no business. Just five little stores. No business, no nothing. 

JS: How did you end up with that family?

ET: Because I don't have nowhere to go. I don't have money to go somewhere else. They know me. They know my family. My brother's helping them. My brother he works roofing and sometimes he don't work. Roofing they just work two times a week. 

JS: Why did you cross last week? 

ET: I was always looking,looking for somebody else, to see who wants to cross with me. Someone told me there's another guy who wants to leave. He told me, "I want to leave but I don't have money to buy food. We need to buy food for three days." I told him, "I'll buy the food and you just go with me." 

JS: Why this guy?

ET: First, I saw these other guys. They said, "If you want to go to other side, put a bundle [of marijuana] on you back and we will take you back." I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want none of that. Then I would be in jail. See what happened last time? [Esteban was charged with drug smuggling and found not guilty.] I don't want to be passing through the same thing. I don't want to risk my life again. 

JS: Who was the guy you crossed with? 

ET: I don't know, an old man, 55 years old. He was in United States and was deported and was living in MX. He was in the US for 15 years. [He was deported] for drinking. He was living in Eloy. He was driving and got a DUI. 

JS: Could you cross and just follow the smugglers without carrying anything? ET: They used to let you, but not no more. They don't let people cross no more. They don't want illegal people crossing right here. The only people they let cross right here is if you're born here. [Esteban was born in []; his father, Jesus, was born in Arizona and had an Arizona birth certificate, and was married to Esteban's mother, which is why the jury in 2008 found him Not Guilty of Illegal Reentry.] They [the smugglers] are working all the time. I ask them, "When can I cross, I'm from []? They give you a day, "We're not going to work that day." They used to charge $300 but right now I didn't pay nothing. 

JS: What do they use when they cross? Trucks? Cars? 

ET: When they're going to cross bundles it's just people. And then people with binoculars to see the other side. Radios walkie talkies and everything. 

JS: What food did you buy? 

ET: Little cans of sausage, tuna, some tortillas, a lot of chips, little things, juices. 

JS: What did you use to carry things? 

ET: A backpack like the kind you use from school. 

JS: What time did you leave? 

ET: We jumped the border at 8 a.m. 

JS: How did you know where to go? How did you go over the fence? 

ET: Some people told us that you can cross by yourself. If you walk all the way to mountain, there's no fence no more, just a mountain. I want to go back with my family and I don't have money for coyote and I don't want to carry bundles. People said, go this mountain and go straight toward another mountain and stay between the roads and that will take you to Tucson. 

JS: Did you sleep at night? 

ET: We just walk in the day and sleep in the night. And when we start walking on mile 18 the border patrol starts following but they didn't catch up. We lost them. From there they saw us again and they was waiting for us on the road. We went to sleep right there, so they got tired waiting for us. Then in the morning at 6 a.m. we start walking. And that night I start feeling sick, start throwing up a lot. I drink the water and I'm throwing that up, and then in the desert you can die 

JS: Why do you think you had this problem and not the guy you were with? 

ET: I think I was locked up for 15 months with no sun [fighting his deportation] and so when the sun hits me, it hits me bad. That's what I think. JS: What was it like with the other guy when he decided to leave you? 

ET: He told me, "Now I'm going to leave you in the desert, good luck. I need to keep walking because if I stay here border patrol is going to get me for reentry and I don't want to do time for reentry. So i'm going to leave you." 

JS: What did you say? 

ET: I told him, "I'm going to give you a couple cans, but leave me a little water so I can get to the road." He said alright. In the morning we came out to cross the JS: How long were you waiting before you saw the Border Patrol? 

ET: About a half hour. I was on the side of the road, sitting under under the mesquite right there and then Border Patrol passes and didn't see me and another car passed and I ask them for a ride and they just keep going and i think they told [Border Patrol]. And they pass again. I was sitting right under the mesquite. They asked me, "You haven't drunk water for how long? I told them we finished our water and we drank where the cows drink water. That's where we got water, and I just got that dirty water. [Border Patrol] gives me water and I just start throwing up. "You're sick, I'm calling medical," the guy said. Another Border Patrol got there and gave me the things in Tucson. They were saying "Oh, how did you get out? You was doing 75 years." I never got no sentence for 75 years. "Yeah, you got 75 years. how did you got out?" I told them I walked away from a work furlough,and got 7.5 months. "On the paper the court put 'years.' How did you get out? You had sentence for 75 years." So that scared me, too. And then they said we're going to get you for Reentry. We're going to take you to CCA Florence to see the judge. I said, let me talk to my attorney. they said, we can't let you. I said I wanted to talk to the Mexican consulate. They called Jesse [Smith], Esteban's terrific defense attorney for the 2008 case] and the third day they released me. I think they saw in the computer that i beat that case. 

JS: Did they give you any paperwork when they released you? 

ET: They didn't give me nothing. I just signed one page. They gave me no copy.

Tonight  Esteban sent me a text.  He is going to try again.  As soon as possible.  As soon as he finds someone else to cross with him.

New ICE Contracts, and Design Within ICE

From ICE Adelanto Intergovernmental Service Agreement, released to Deportation Research Clinic under the Freedom of Information Act

I took a break from the blog since July, but am resuming with some posts that will try to document in real time some of my research and writing in progress, especially documents sent to me responsive to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.  (I should note that the government is trying to have it both ways: prosecuting people for leaks but then not releasing information according to the statutory requirements of the FOIA law.)

In a cover letter dated September 12, 2013, and postmarked a week later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released some of the documents associated with its current contract with the City of Adelanto, California for a detention facility dedicated exclusively to people in ICE custody.  The data on the daily bed rates and other costs are unlawfully redacted, and I am appealing these, as well as the missing attachments.  (I am linking to the appeal because the ICE FOIA office is handling a lot of requests for contracts and I'm guessing they will be applying unlawful redactions on those as well; will update on the result.)

 According to an official who spoke to me on condition of confidentiality, the new detention arrangement with GEO is replacing the previous contract ICE had with the facility run by the Los Angeles County sheriff in Mira Loma. Instead of detainees being housed about an hour from downtown L.A. and having live hearings before immigration hearing adjudicators, they are now having televideo hearings from the-middle-of-nowhere in a region chock full of federal, state and local prisons and jails.  Apparently, the LA Sheriff union contract was being renegotiated and ICE found it too expensive. 

GEO Managed Adelanto, CA East and West Detention Facilities

Adelanto 2011 Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA)

I've been reviewing older contracts and this one seems radically different from others, including others signed as late as 2011.  Perhaps the facility is supposed to be one of the new model facilities, except that the language emphasizing the specificity of immigration detainees and their unique needs as administrative detainees and not criminals, is couched in broader, systemwide terms and not specific to this facility.   (The contract also has some language that resembles terms in the Request for Procurement for a new facility in San Antonio, Texas, also issued in 2011.)  

Anyway,  take a look.    The Adelanto subcontractor is the GEO Group.   Curious if anyone has thoughts on why ICE would use an Intergovernmental Service Agreement to have the city supervise a site that ICE is requiring to house exclusively federal immigration detainees, in an area where the federal government already makes quite an impressive footprint.  And, why is ICE doing this in Adelanto and issuing a call for its own contractor to design and run a facility in San Antonio?  Also, curious to hear from anyone who has been to this facility: are there really contact visits? (You can post here or email me at jacqueline-stevensAT northwestern.edu/)  Also, the city sold the land for this facility to GEO a few years back, though that itself doesn't explain the IGSA since ICE has other direct contracts with firms that also own the land and facility.

DIY Detention Facility Instructions

And speaking of the San Antonio RFP, here's something I never ran across before: a lengthy design guide, with dimensions and pictures, for how to build your own ICE detention facility: 

It's the real life dollhouse version of the immigration detention facility, for children who like to play prison, and with a weird fixation on ... the toilet, the single image that appears more than any other in this document.  I lost track but well over a dozen pictures of toilets appear.  Here are a few:

The one above appears in the document the most frequently--it's the unisex, male, female, officer, public, etc. toilet.  It looks exactly like the Eloy CCA toilet when I visited, the one that had been overflowing into the waiting room for a few days.

This is the "Special Case" Room, which the Manual notes is also referred to as the "padded room."

If you want to know what an inside of a detention facility is supposed to look like, this is your book

.