Inside with the INS
Rodoreda, Geoff
THE LAST WORD Geoff Rodoreda Inside with the INS At the Immigration and Naturalization Service Detention Facility in El Paso, Texas, your fellow detainees name you after your country of origin....
...He asked me to step off the bus with him for a moment to clear up the matter...
...Not one of them was able to help me...
...Wandering aimlessly behind a barbed-wire fence during my first dismal day in detention, I began speaking in Spanish with a group of Latin Americans...
...I was advised to be wary of the military and to guard my luggage at all times...
...Less than two hours into the trip, the Greyhound coach was stopped for a standard INS checkup: An immigration officer boarded the bus to inspect the passports of passengers who were not U.S...
...There I was questioned again, ignored again, strip-searched, and given the green uniform worn by INS detainees...
...But after hearing my story he shouted, "Look, I suggest you sit down in that chair right now and begin telling us the truth because those border officials know how to do their job and they don't just wave people through like that...
...When I entered the Detention Facility, I was given the telephone numbers of two "nonprofit social and legal-assistance agencies," but when I tried to call them they politely declined to accept collect calls...
...No," I replied, "I have some problems with my passport...
...On Thursday, October 15, returning to the United States after a three-month journey through Mexico and Guatemala, I walked across the Santa Fe Bridge linking Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, with El Paso, and presented myself at the border checkpoint...
...We were all ilegales...
...I hesitated...
...The immigration judge only came to hear cases on Tuesdays and Thursdays...
...He assured me I did not and allowed me to pass freely into the United States...
...No telephone books were available, so I couldn't look up the number of my friends in El Paso...
...I never saw him again...
...Public telephones were available, but there was a catch: You could only make collect calls...
...My name was the last to be called out on Thursday, October 29...
...Over the next three hours, I was asked many more questions, fingerprinted, handcuffed, and transported back to the El Paso Immigration Detention Center...
...No, we don't do that here...
...Over the next two days, I asked five officers whether they could get me the telephone number of the nearest Australian consulate...
...After a careful fifteen-minute search, he stepped back and allowed me to pass into the United States...
...You mean I can just go through...
...Chile passed the time by torturing beetles...
...I was still feeling relaxed and confident as I explained the situation to a senior officer...
...Lebanon became popular when he hit an officer in the face and was put in solitary confinement for two days...
...either there was no time "just now," or I would have to see a different officer about it later...
...When I asked to go to the equipment room to look up the number in my address book, I was told that visits to the equipment room could only be made on Saturdays...
...The judge listened to my explanation of events, found the INS could not prove the allegations it had made against me, and ruled that my case be terminated...
...Quickly I explained what had happened...
...I finally got the number of the Australian consulate in Houston from a fellow detainee who happened to have it...
...I don't need a stamp or anything in my passport...
...It proved to be a bewildering journey into the maze of American immigration bureaucracy...
...So it was "Honduras," not Luis, who was best at soccer and Morocco who excelled on the volleyball court...
...Before I left Australia, I was warned by parents and friends to watch out for corrupt police in Mexico and avoid violence in war-torn Central America...
...But I shared my sense of constant frustration with everyone else, not only over the INS officials' ignorance of our plight, but also over their refusal to assist us with even the simplest of requests...
...If your name was not called out on Thursday, it meant another five-day wait...
...Canada, a mournful character, was always asking for handouts...
...citizens...
...After a nine-day holiday courtesy of the INS, I walked out of El Paso's detention facility...
...Geoff Rodoreda works for an Australian radio station in Adelaide...
...one of them asked...
...tourist visa, and waved me through to a customs official who inspected my bags for perishable food, live animals, and illegal drugs...
...But no one in Australia had told me about the U.S...
...After browsing through my Australian passport for a few seconds, he asked when I had last entered the United States...
...I was known as Australia...
...I was arrested by the INS on Tuesday, October 20, and spent nine days "inside" with about 250 other detainees from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Europe...
...Thursday, October 15," I replied...
...Sure," he said...
...I asked the customs officer...
...Where is your entry stamp and your 1-94 form...
...At the time I didn't understand the joke, but as the days went by I began to see that it didn't matter whether you had smuggled drugs across the border or had overstayed your visa, whether you had been caught working illegally in the United States or were trapped inside because immigration officials had not done their job properly...
...Neither the customs officer nor the man at the turnstile had put a stamp in my passport, nor had they given me the standard 1-94 form issued to all tourists who enter the United States...
...Why are you here...
...But I don't need one...
...When I asked one of the officers in the compound if he could do me a special favor and look up the number in a telephone directory at the main office, he said he would do his best...
...I was detained and faced possible deportation because an officer at the U.S.Mexican border had made a stupid mistake...
...Five days later, after visiting friends in El Paso, I caught a bus for San Antonio...
...I asked again...
...Are you an illegal...
...Ah, that's what they all say," he said, and the group broke into laughter...
...An INS officer seated beside a turnstile looked through my passport, saw my valid U.S...
Vol. 53 • May 1989 • No. 5
