The Journey To Elizabeth
Driving to Elizabeth on any occasion is a journey. The Garden state parkway, the Turnpike, 1&9, Newark airport, and the loads of evening traffic makes it perilous. I was grateful not to be driving, just sitting in the passenger seat and doing that thing where I think I can hit the brakes on my side too. My companion and I happily chatted away noting synchronicity between us making the drive feel like a fun collaboration.
She had made this drive several times before and genuinely cared for the people she wanted to help in whatever way she could. I respect that greatly. Once the news journalist goes away and the sensation dies down, what’s left are families in need. No music in the car, just the sing-song rhythm of our talking filled the car.
I’d never been to a jail or a detention center. I had no idea what to expect. I knew that prior to meeting my companion had mentioned to me that there was a strict dress code. Solid colors only, no logos, no tank tops, no leggings or yoga pants, nothing see through or sheer, nothing low cut, no hoodies. You can only bring yourself in to visit. No phones, smart watches, or jackets. Belongings are stored in a locker. Finally, I had to bring my ID. Already the directions imparted for this visit set a tone.
With this in mind, I dressed in compliance. Loose fitting gray lounge pants and a sweater. My companion told me that visiting times during the week begin in the evening at 5,6, and 7 pm. Each visit is for an hour. On the weekends the hours vary. Knowing the Alien number of the person you are visiting is helpful as the majority of the staff do not speak Spanish. So pronunciations and spelling makes it hard for them to access records quickly of whom you are visiting.
Concrete Walls
The detention center is located in a back lot near warehouses. Run down, it’s the oldest detention center in the state and it shows. The front of the building has three worn down American flags at the entrance. The sign Core Civic above the entrance. Their logo looks like a shipping storage container in the shape of an American flag. Make no mistake, they are warehousing human beings here.
As we entered through the front doors I noticed rows of seating where family members were seated waiting with tags attached to them with numbers. A row of square lockers against the wall and a small window where a Core Civic employee manned the visitors desk. She sat behind a clear plastic window in a tightly fitted uniform.
Her hands did not have to touch visitors. Small slates within the partition made it so you could slide an ID to her. My eyes took in the room at that moment and I thought to myself, if this is the visitors entrance imagine what condition the dorms are in.
I noticed the employees were African American, Latino, and Asian. Elizabeth is an urban area. Good jobs are scarce for people who didn’t go to college and even for those that did. Core Civic is a for profit prison company and I wondered since they are oppressing the detained, what must they be doing to their employees.
For a company that needs to squeeze out profits for its share holders, these economic gains come off the backs of many. Later that evening, I’d research jobs and found the only job listed on the company’s website was for a detention officer which pays $34.32 an hour. A high school diploma or GED listed as a requirement. In an area like Elizabeth this is what many would consider a good paying job. But at what cost?
Once we signed in, the front desk attendant gave my companion a pad lock to secure our belongings into the small rectangular locker. We clipped on our tag and left our ID with the lady. My companion noticed one of the young ladies wore a hoodie and gave her a tee shirt she was wearing over her shirt so that she would not be denied entrance. Another family was waiting to see if they could locate their loved one after being told they could not visit due to him being kept in higher security at that time. They had not heard from him in two days.
They patiently waited, left and came back to ask again about his whereabouts until they found him. Lost in paperwork or some other disorganization the thought of not being able to find someone within this system was terrifying. If it had been my father lost in this detention center, I don’t know how I would have coped with it.
We waited for the visitors from the first hours to come out and we began to line up to enter. First we would need to go through a shabby metal detector and take off our shoes to run them through a screener as well. We waited in a holding room for a few minutes until the doors opened to allow us into a community room where the detainees waited for their guests. In my group were teens and young adults, a mother with a baby, parents and grandparents coming to visit their loved one.
The visiting room was bare. The only pop of color were some soft color tiles on the floor in a makeshift children’s play area. No toys, just a small table and chairs. The room was open with detainees sitting at tables waiting for their visitors. Concrete gray wall with fluorescent lighting. No windows or ventilation.
Elizabeth is a men’s only detention center and those in this section do not have criminal records. The room was full of men without criminal records being detained against their will. Men who looked like uncles, cousins, and people from my neighborhood. And they are my neighbors. A few weeks ago they were working in town. Perhaps I’d bumped into them at Dunkin or at Pan Pizza. Faces that looked familiar yet now in this setting they looked forlorn.
Meeting Rubin
The man I was visiting with, I’ll call Rubin to protect his identity. A middle aged man from Guatemala. This was the first time we would be meeting. We were at once taken aback by one another. I was not who he was expecting and he was not at all who I expected to see either. We had no prior communication.
I greeted him warmly and introduced myself. He thanked me for the visit and seemed relieved to have someone to talk to. I told him that I worked as a counselor in the community and to forgive me if I asked too many questions as it’s my nature to run with my curiosities. He smiled and welcomed my questions.
“How did you come to be here? What happened to you?” I asked.
“I got up one morning to get myself some coffee. They took me. I didn’t have my phone or ID. I wasn’t even wearing a jacket. They just took me off the sidewalk.” Rubin’s dark brown eyes looked up to the fluorescent lights and put his hand to his mouth. He clutched it in a way that I do when I don’t want to cry. When I want to hold back and keep composure. Men don’t cry.
I was mainly here to discuss his court case. He was on schedule to meet with the judge tomorrow and wanted to make sure he understood his options.
“If you ask for asylum and they deny it. It could be that you are sent someplace else. If you decide to continue to pursue your claim you could be here for a while longer with no sure outcome. If you decide to self deport, you could be held here in detention until they send you. What have you been thinking? Do you have a lawyer?”
“When I got here, I called the number and spoke to someone but I never heard back from the hotline. I don’t think I have a lawyer. I’m not sure yet what I want to do.”
I sat with his words for a moment. Understanding the gravity of them. Rubin has not had the opportunity for representation and despite that, this court date would continue. Apart from our conversation now, it was unlikely that he’d had a chance to discuss it. They informed him about the court date a few hours ago.
Rubin clutched his biceps trying to warm himself. The thin dark blue detention outfit he wore was short sleeved with a white undershirt beneath. I, in my sweater, had the benefit of warmth and security that Rubin would not tomorrow.
We spent time discussing the pros and cons. Rubin informed me that he’s been in this country for 15 years. The last five in our shared community. It pained him deeply to leave. He’s worked in construction. Rented a room in a house and in his time paid for it dutifully. Now the landlord threatened to throw out his stuff if he didn’t receive payment for the room by the 15th.
“All my things are there. I have money there that I was saving too. Things I’ll need if I go to Guatemala. I’m so disillusioned with people.” His face changed. A sourness came over him as he spoke. His voice pressured. Disgust in the lack of compassion from his landlord who knew where he was and the notion that humanity came down to the royal dollar.
In the end, that’s all that mattered. Not the five years of knowing him, knowing the kind of person he is. It didn’t matter. Tears filled his eyes but he gazed upwards into the fluorescent lights again and swallowed them back into his tear ducts. He wasn’t going to cry. The resentment in his heart steeled him. Protected him now when he most needed it.
We spoke about this betrayal that he felt, not just with his landlord but in life. The old childhood wounds of feeling left alone to survive. The oldest of five children who had left home early to work and eventually made his way to the United States. No contact with his father. Not discarded by his family, just against insurmountable odds most of his life. We spoke of the conditions in detainment.
His concerns for a younger man who wasn’t coping well. The constant screaming of another man who was struggling with mental illness and had no help. Just relentless crying out with no answers. The other men endured it all day. Patience was wearing thin, people had changed in order to survive. He kept to himself talking to the younger man who often sought him out to talk.
“Talk about what, there’s nothing that I can tell him,” Rubin said to me.
“What else have you experienced?”
He told me. Leaning in and looking around the room to see who was nearby, who could be listening. “They record things,” he said.
“There was a man who died in the bathroom. He sat there for hours before they took him away,”
During the end of our time, we spoke about metaphysics, religion, God, family. Food was the big topic.
“Chanclas,” he said. “They have them in Mexico too,”
“Yes, the long tortillas that resemble a flip flop loaded with refried beans, meat and any other topping,” I responded.
“I miss the food the most. Here they give us something that looks like that but very small,” Rubin squeezed his fingers together to give me a sense of the size. “No one eats them, they taste terrible.”
We reminisced about food from his childhood. At that moment I remembered a comment I get a lot from my writing about spending too much time on food. I wished to be able to capture the longing look on Rubin’s face to help my writing group understand how fundamentally important food is to us. The essence of it in the culture and memories of our lives. How could I not write about food?
The Little Things
In the end, Rubin asked me if I had watched the animated film Soul. The guard announced that visiting time was over. I urged him to hurry and tell me. I wanted to know why it was so meaningful to him. I didn’t stand up like others around me who were preparing to leave.
“In the movie, at the end when he is reflecting on his life. That moment when he notices all the little things that are regular old living. When he realizes how special it all was. That’s how I feel right now.”
I did too. Later, when I went to youtube to remind myself of the scene Rubin spoke about I cried as I watched it. The feeling of how critically important all these seemingly small things in our everyday lives are taken for granted until they are gone. I thought about Rubin when I went to bed. I wondered if he was cold. If he died tonight would anyone find him or would he sit there for hours? If our souls were meant to cross paths in this way? What is the greater meaning to all of this injustice?
https://youtu.be/5i_DKxZu0aI?si=v-3QboGqexPealLb
P.S. Our community group is currently raising funds to help families like this one navigate legal fees and basic needs while they are ‘frozen in time.’ If you found strength in this blog posts message of ‘Together We Are America,’ please consider being the ‘WE’ that supports them here: Rapid Response https://venmo.com/u/Morristowntogether
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What happens when a person is reduced to an “Alien Number”? A moving account of a visit to the Elizabeth Detention Center and the human stories hidden behind Core Civic’s walls.