I’d like to share with you yet another terrible immigration story. This one just breaks my heart.

I have tax clients, Larry and Amalia. They are wonderful people. Larry is an American, Amalia is Mexican. They met at the nursing home where both worked. He is a physical therapist, she is a nursing assistant (read minimum wage employee who performs a job that regular Americans refuse to do). They married, bought a house. Amalia had a son from previous relationship and Larry, who does not have his own kids, was raising him as his own. Everything was wonderful, ( but they did not live happily ever after because our wonderful immigration system got involved. )

I spent last Saturday visiting a family member who was detained by ICE (division of immigration). He did not come to this country illegally, just the opposite. He was issued a temporary green card and timely applied for the adjustment of status to receive his permanent green card. While still in the process of getting his documents, he moved from one residence to another. He filed all of the necessary paperwork with the INS to inform them of the move; however, they still sent all of the documentation to the old address. As a result, he missed his appointment with the immigration resulting in judge issuing deportation order. As soon as he found out, he got a lawyer involved. ICE officer told his lawyer to show up at the immigration office to have it all straitened out, instead they just detained him and transported him to Broward Transitional Center outside of Miami.

Broward Transitional Center is located right in the busy street, but if I was just driving by I would have never known what’s there. There are no signs and one would never know what’s behind those walls. We pulled in the parking lot and proceeded into the building. Upon entering very small lobby with very few sits, we realized that USA was left behind and now we are in some sort of the third world country where human rights are non-existent. There was nobody to answer our questions or to guide us through the process. Several signs were posted on the walls in English and Spanish indicating some of the rules. Specifically, the visitors have to have proper attire (no low cut tops for ladies, no hats for man, etc.), cannot bring in anything without some sort of pre-approved form, cannot give anything to the detainees, etc.

Visitation hours are from 2PM to 4:30PM. Exactly at 2 PM young Hispanic guard in uniform showed up and allowed some people into the room adjacent to the lobby. The entire process was extremely unorganized; people closest to the door pushing each other just made their way in, the rest of us were left waiting. Once the first group of visitors was processed, we made our way in and were asked who we were here to visit. The guard compared our driver’s licenses to the list he had. There were no computers and everything was done manually. While he was writing our names down, I picked over the list of detainees. There was not one Middle Eastern name, most names were Hispanic. Truly “dangerous individuals” who have to be sent back home as soon as possible. Poor immigrants who come to this country to make a little money to support their families at home are detained here, but dangerous terrorists are roaming our streets freely.

Once we were cleared to visit, the guard picked up a phone and using an intercom system announced to our relative that we should report to the visitation room. At the same time we were allowed into the adjacent visitation room. That room looked like a typical lunch room in any office building. It had many round table and plastic chairs and several vending machines. We picked a table and soon noticed our relative in the mismatched orange scrubs. Another guard by the door inspected him comparing his badge to the list of some sort and asked him if he had any money. Once this was over, we were allowed to speak with him. The room got crowded very quickly and started to smell like sweat and candy and some strange perfumes. By the time we left, I could not tell if I was getting nauseous from the smell or from the citation itself.

Can somebody explain to me how could something like this happen in United States of America? It is all so surreal and out of some sort of Gulag story. This should never be happening in the United States. Totally innocent person who followed all of the rules is detained in jail and treated like a criminal. This is complete and total absurd.