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<p>When Norma finally reached the United States after more than a
month-and-a-half of journeying from Guatemala with her 5-year-old son,
the very same fear that had compelled her to flee home in the first
place ended up happening anyway: Her child was taken from her — not by
the Guatemalan men who had threatened just that, but by US border
agents.</p>
<p>After an already arduous journey north, it was still only the
beginning of a long nightmare for Norma, who, unlike the vast majority
of migrants seeking asylum at the US border from Central America, is
Indigenous and primarily speaks the Mayan dialect of K’iche’ and only a
limited amount of broken Spanish. Like other people of her descent
seeking a safe haven in the US, her Indigeneity plays a significant role
in her ongoing asylum claim.</p>
<p>Norma’s husband, Daniel,* who speaks both K’iche’ and fluent Spanish,
helped interpret her ordeal during an extensive interview, telling
Truthout that Norma was attacked in Guatemala by a group of men just
after she went to withdraw the money that he had sent her. Daniel has
lived and worked in New York for the past five years and regularly sent
money back to support his family.</p>
<p>The men followed her and held her up just as she was leaving the
bank, telling her that if she didn’t give them her money and her
personal belongings, including her cellphone, they would take her child.
Her attackers continued to pursue her and her son with threats, but
when she went to the police to get help, they were unresponsive, the
couple believes because of Norma’s limited ability to explain what
happened in Spanish.</p>
<p>After that, she felt she could no longer leave her home without
risking her son’s safety — or even his or her own life. Like thousands
of other Guatemalan families facing similar violence, she decided to
leave, setting off with her son in April.</p>
<p>Shortly after crossing the US border in May, she was detained with
her son by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents and moved to a
processing jail with him. She explained that they suffered terrible
conditions, including being put together into a freezing <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-immigrant-children-hunger-detention-20180717-story,amp.html">“ice box” room</a>
without blankets before being moved into separate cells the next day,
where she could hear him crying before authorities told her he would be
sent to a separate detention shelter for children.</p><div class="gmail-banner_wrapper"><div class="gmail-banner gmail-subscribe-banner gmail-banner-247294 gmail-bottom gmail-vert gmail-custom-banners-theme-default_style"><div class="gmail-banner_caption"><div class="gmail-banner_caption_inner"><div class="gmail-banner_caption_text"><p><strong>Don't miss a beat</strong></p><p>Get the latest news and thought-provoking analysis from Truthout.</p><p></p><form class="gmail-subscribe-form gmail-input-group" action="https://hq-org2.salsalabs.com/save" method="post">
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<p>On top of this traumatizing blow, Norma was then funneled through two
more detention and/or processing jails, at times going without showers
or new clothes for as long as a week, sleeping on cell floors, receiving
little food and unable to call her husband or even speak with an
officer, she recalled, before finally landing at the T. Don Hutto
detention jail in Taylor, Texas.</p>
<aside class="gmail-pullquote">“She speaks very basic Spanish, and she speaks very slowly, thinking about every word. She doesn’t speak Spanish very well.”</aside>
<p>There, she said, she was finally able to call Daniel, but remained in
the dark about the whereabouts of her son. She would continue to be
dazed and confused for over a month about exactly what was happening to
her and her son, and especially the complexities of her own legal asylum
process.</p>
<p>As Daniel explained, Norma tried to communicate with both CBP and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents throughout this time in
Spanish, but “the problem is she speaks very basic Spanish, and she
speaks very slowly, thinking about every word. She doesn’t speak Spanish
very well,” he said.</p>
<h2><strong>Language Barriers in Immigrant Detention</strong></h2>
<p>As someone with little Spanish proficiency, Norma said she had
difficulties because of her language barriers. While she was eventually
able to proceed with the first legal step in her asylum process by
having what’s known as a “credible fear” interview with the assistance
of an interpreter, she couldn’t understand the jail’s basic procedures
and rules. “Nobody talked to her about anything. She was just in the
room,” Daniel said. This isolation and lack of clarity only amplified
her anxiety: She was terrified that she’d be deported back to Guatemala
without her son, where, as Daniel says, she “didn’t know what would
happen to her.”</p>
<p>An ICE spokesperson told Truthout the agency manages telephone-based
translation services known as “language lines,” and pointed to the
agency’s June 2015 <a href="https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Document/2015/LanguageAccessPlan.pdf">Language Access Plan</a>,
saying the agency’s Office of Diversity and Civil Rights leads a
required language-access working group to address language-related
issues in detention.</p>
<p>But the difficulties Norma described are something that civil rights
and refugee advocates like Margo Schlanger, the former head of the
Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and
Civil Liberties, have pushed ICE to improve for years, including during
the Obama administration.</p>
<aside class="gmail-pullquote">“Nobody talked to her about anything. She was just in the room.”</aside>
<p>When Schlanger headed the civil rights office from 2010 to 2012, she
was in charge of the department’s language-access obligations under an
executive order signed by President Clinton in 2000. After she left DHS,
she chaired a working group of the Advisory Committee on Family
Residential Centers, a nongovernmental committee tasked with making
recommendations to the DHS secretary concerning language-access issues
for people with limited English and Spanish proficiency that was
narrowly focused on family detention jails.</p>
<p>In October 2016, the committee <a href="https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report/2016/acfrc-report-final-102016.pdf">published a report</a>
outlining a set of recommendations to improve language access, finding
that DHS’s language-access policy “is neither appropriately implemented
nor appropriately communicated to families detained in ICE’s [family
jails].” Among the first recommendations is avoiding the use of family
detention for limited proficiency speakers entirely:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When DHS encounters an individual who speaks a rare language that
poses severe language access difficulties – such as a Central American
indigenous language – such a person should not be detained, but should
rather be released with a Notice to Appear, on their own recognizance or
with the support of a case management support program. In the rare
event that this approach is inappropriate or impossible, such persons
should be provided with appointed counsel who can facilitate both
effective language access and fair immigration proceedings.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Beyond that, the report recommends ICE track languages spoken and
provide translations of all crucial documents, including the detainee
handbook and orientation materials, for any language spoken by 0.5
percent or more detainees, or 50 detainees in the course of a year,
whichever is lower. The report also recommends the agency provide
non-text strategies to assist in understanding for people with low
literacy levels, as well as “explore various ways to provide live
interpretation or bilingual staff.”</p>
<p>“We did not think that ICE was capable of running a safe and
appropriate detention setting for people who didn’t have either English
or Spanish,” Schlanger told Truthout. “I didn’t see any follow-through
[on the report]. The committee was never formally disbanded, but after
the [2016 US] election, any idea that it was ever going to meet again
was gone. … As far as I know, no one in the new administration has even
read [the report].”</p>
<aside class="gmail-pullquote">“As far as I know, no one in the new administration has even read [the report].”</aside>
<p>Moreover, the committee’s report makes note of a <a href="http://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/IM-CA-0002-0024.pdf">May 2016 court filing</a>
by the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and
Legal Services (RAICES). The filing was made on behalf of plaintiffs in
the 33-year-long battle over conditions for migrant children held in
family detention jails in <em>Flores v. Reno</em>, and reviewed the
situations of 250 families with limited English and Spanish. It found
that detention guards and staffers “systematically fail to communicate
with non-Spanish speakers in their languages,” and claims the <span><a href="https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report/2016/acfrc-report-final-102016.pdf">following anecdote</a></span> is typical:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When Elana and her two-year-old son first arrived at the Dilley[,
Texas,] detention center after being detained on August 26, 2015, she
informed officials that she spoke Mam, an indigenous Mayan language
spoken by half a million Guatemalans, and that her religion was Mam. But
during the three weeks that she and her two-year-old son spent in
detention, neither ICE nor Corrections Corporations of America (CCA)
(the private prison contractor operating the Dilley detention center)
staff communicated with her in Mam. ICE never found a Mam interpreter
for Elana or gave her any documents written in Mam.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The report also detailed problems with the language lines the agency
uses for translation. Even though the committee was unable to fully
assess how prevalent language line use is since ICE would not provide
the committee with the available data from those services, the report
cited one ICE compliance review of the family detention jail in Dilley
that ICE included in its own court filing in the <em>Flores</em> case.
The review described “both a documentation problem and an underuse of
interpretation,” according to the committee’s report.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lincolngoldfinch.com/">Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch</a>,
an immigration attorney who represented Norma while she was detained in
Texas, told Truthout that she used the language lines to speak with
Norma about her legal proceedings, but had some difficulty with them.
“Because it’s such a rare language, the first time we went through the
language line, the interpreter wasn’t available,” she said.</p>
<p>Her legal team was ultimately able to arrange an in-person
interpreter for Norma, but the interpreter’s services were limited to
Norma’s legal process. Norma gave no indication that she used the
language lines for any other purpose and Lincoln-Goldfinch confirmed as
much, telling Truthout that the guards at the Hutto detention jail spoke
to her in Spanish for all other matters.</p>
<p>Schlanger described the problems further, saying the lines are not
useful when it comes to the languages that have many “micro” dialects,
and that the lines typically aren’t used for group communication,
including orientation. “Even if [the language lines] are being used,
which I’m not convinced of … they’re only being used one-on-one, and so
the result is that they’re only being used for a certain narrow swath of
communications that take place,” she said.</p>
<p>The language problems aren’t limited to Indigenous peoples. ICE’s
Language Access Plan makes clear the agency encounters many other
languages, but Indigenous peoples speaking Mayan dialects are likely the
largest non-English or non-Spanish speaking population arriving from
Central America to seek asylum and subsequently detained in jails in the
border region.</p>
<h2><strong>Indigenous and in Need of Asylum</strong></h2>
<p>According to ICE’s <a href="https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Document/2015/LanguageAccessPlan.pdf">2015 Language Access Plan</a>,
the agency encounters a number of Mayan dialects spoken in Guatemala
and southern Mexico, including K’iche’ (Quiche), Mam, Achi, Ixil,
Awakatek, Jakaltek (Popti) and Qanjobal (K’anjob’al). A CBP spokesperson
confirmed to Truthout, however, that the agency “does not track the
language spoken by an individual arrestee” at the border. Neither, a
spokesperson confirmed, does ICE “break down its detention population by
language.”</p>
<aside class="gmail-pullquote">“The entire concept of this system is
completely foreign, and adding the language barrier on top of that makes
it nearly impossible to effectively prepare them for what happens.”</aside>
<p>While there remain no hard statistics available on Indigenous
populations crossing the border, Manoj Govindaiah, who directs family
detention services at RAICES, told Truthout that the organization works
with hundreds of Indigenous people every day. In fact, this year alone,
the organization has encountered 442 families speaking Indigenous
languages in their work at the family detention jail in Karnes City,
Texas. They saw between 60 and 70 Indigenous families per month, with 33
by mid-July. The numbers, however, open only a tiny window on this
population.</p>
<p>Govindaiah explained some of the challenges RAICES faces when
representing and providing legal services for Indigenous-language
speaking families in immigration proceedings. The asylum process is
remarkably complex even for clients who are fluent in English and
Spanish, he says, and explaining the legal process and requirements for
asylum-seekers once they are released proves challenging. “The entire
concept of this sort of system is so completely foreign, and then adding
the language barrier on top of that makes it nearly impossible to
effectively prepare them for what happens,” he said.</p>
<p>Still, the organization is working with a group of Indigenous
interpreters who have offered to provide in-person services, and
Govindaiah said RAICES staffers do have access to language lines at the
family detention jails where they work most prominently.</p>
<p>In Govindaiah’s experience, Indigenous-speaking families are
sometimes issued what’s known as a “Rare Language Notice to Appear”
allowing them to bypass the credible fear interview process and be
released with a court date. While “this is great in a way,” Govindaiah
says, it is also problematic because “that family really does not
receive information from the asylum office on their rights and their
obligations.”</p>
<p>Lincoln-Goldfinch echoed some of the difficulties faced by lawyers
and legal organizations when trying their best to provide
Indigenous-language speakers with adequate due process. In addition to
the problems she encountered with the language lines at Hutto, her team
encountered several logistical hurdles, including scheduling
difficulties with the interpreter they finally arranged. ICE officers
didn’t make things easier: They initially wouldn’t clear the
interpreter, who was flown in to be at the Hutto jail in person, for
entry.</p>
<p>Norma’s case is still pending, and she’s scheduled for a hearing next
month in Texas. Lincoln-Goldfinch, however, is working with a law firm
in New York to transfer her case there, as well as reunify her and her
son’s cases, which became legally severed after her son was rendered
“unaccompanied” by border officials when he was separated from her.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Norma’s Indigeneity plays a significant role in her
asylum claim. As Daniel explained, gangs in Guatemala often specifically
target people who are Indigenous because they know that they “can’t do
anything” and “can’t give a detailed account of what happened to the
police.” In Norma’s case, Daniel said, the police “didn’t even do the
paperwork or give her a record of her claim.” He underscored that it’s
not simply about a language barrier, saying her treatment was also about
“our difference in ways and customs.”</p>
<p>Govindaiah confirmed that he sees similar experiences of persecution
in his work with detained families, saying many Indigenous-language
speaking families have expressed that they can’t communicate with the
police, and that women who have non-Indigenous partners often report
verbal domestic abuse referencing their ethnicity. Additionally, Central
American women have also reported being discriminated against in
employment or in educational opportunities because of their Indigenous
clothing or language.</p>
<p>The persecution faced by Indigenous Central Americans, both in their
country of origin and in terms of the US’s specific state-sponsored
violence of detention and family separation at the border, is part of a
legacy of cultural oppression and erasure of Indigenous people spanning
hundreds of years.</p>
<h2><strong>From Boarding Schools to Border Separations</strong></h2>
<p>The US in particular has a long history of stripping Indigenous
parents of their children for the purpose of assimilating them, and that
legacy continues to this day.</p>
<p>As Truthout <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/indigenous-children-face-extreme-rates-of-removal-and-state-violence/">has detailed</a>, Native children in the US were systematically taken from their parents and placed in boarding schools under <a href="http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/four/ftlaram.htm">Article VII of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868</a> for more than a century, until <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141662357/incentives-and-cultural-bias-fuel-foster-system">the Indian Child Welfare Act</a> (ICWA) was passed in 1978.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that the law <a href="http://www.nicwa.org/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act/">established requirements</a>
for child welfare agencies and state courts in their work with Native
children, the US’s system of cultural oppression simply morphed again,
this time in the form of the child welfare system. Repeated violations
of the ICWA led the Bureau of Indian Affairs to <a href="https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/bia-releases-new-icwa-guidelines-to-protect-native-families-and-children-rleRwA5LMkqWwo5d4Fh1Mw/">draft new guidelines</a> to strengthen the law in 2015, for instance.</p>
<aside class="gmail-pullquote">“To be going through such a traumatic
experience and not even having the language to understand what’s going
on around you is unfathomable.”</aside>
<p>The separation of Indigenous children from their parents at the
border only adds to and accelerates the state’s cultural erasure of
Native populations, as children taken into custody by the Department of
Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Separated-children-are-sent-to-foster-homes-13016054.php">have been sent to often white, potentially abusive foster homes</a> hundreds of miles from their parents.</p>
<p>The ORR did not respond to Truthout’s request for information about
the office’s language-access protocols and procedures. It remains
unclear if the office tracks the number of Indigenous-language speaking
children taken into custody, to what extent the office uses similar
language lines to communicate, or whether the office has any special
procedures for Indigenous children. While the HHS maintains a Language
Access Plan, Truthout was unable to find such a plan specifically for
HHS’s ORR component.</p>
<p>Separations of Indigenous children happened routinely even before the
Trump administration enacted its “zero-tolerance” policy, potentially
because Indigenous-language speaking mothers can’t effectively counter
the US government’s claims that they may be “unfit.” Govindaiah told
Truthout that at the Karnes family jail alone, 24 Indigenous-language
speaking families reported separation from their children since January.</p>
<p>More than 900 children still remain separated from their parents even
as today marks a court-ordered deadline for the US government to
reunify families separated at the border. <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/07/26/immigrant-family-reunification-deadline-separated-children/">According to CBS</a>,
as many as 200 of those cases involve parents who declined to be
reunited, because, attorneys say, they are feeling pressured to sign
away their rights to do so and that some “don’t understand what they’re
agreeing to; whether the result of a language barrier, or documents that
are too complex.”</p>
<p>Of the mothers torn from their children since the onset of the
administration’s zero-tolerance policy, Norma is one of the lucky ones.
Daniel explained that his son was moved to a detention shelter in New
York after being separated, and Daniel was eventually able to prove his
paternity and reunite with him. Norma joined them both once she was
released on bond from the Hutto jail this month.</p>
<p>Still, her ordeal is why international treaties and declarations, such as the <a href="https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf">United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People</a>,
endorsed by the US in 2010, specifically prohibit state-sponsored
separations. The Declaration codifies Indigenous people’s right to
“retain shared responsibility for the upbringing, training, education
and well-being of their children,” as well as enshrining their rights as
a collective status.</p>
<p>Trump’s executive order regarding family separations at the border —
as well as existing immigration law regarding family detention and
conditions for children — make no special provisions for Indigenous
people, who face unique challenges and a history of oppression at the US
border.</p>
<p>“Poor Norma, stuck in a detention center with people who don’t speak
her language, and her son has been taken away. Thank God she has a
little bit of Spanish so she wasn’t <em>completely</em> disoriented,”
Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “To be going through such a traumatic experience
and not even having the language to understand what’s going on around
you is … unfathomable.”</p>
<p><em>*Both Norma and Daniel’s full names have been withheld to protect
their identities as their family moves forward with their legal asylum
claim.</em></p>
<p><em>Truthout’s marketing manager, Sophie Moon, translated Daniel’s statements for this article.</em></p>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
</div>