Thread by @axidentaliberal

UPDATE:

Lawyers for Good Government’s

♦️Project Corazon♦️

Reports from Dilley, Texas, courtesy of L4GG member Pam Woldow and her husband, Douglas Richardson

To support us, please text CORAZON to 91999

lawyersforgoodgovernment.org/project-corazo…

Men working at Dilley have to tread carefully, because many of their clients’ pains and indignities stem from their oppressed relationships with the men in their lives: abusive husbands, gang members, drunken relatives, indifferent police and government, and snakeheads.

It is therefore no surprise that some of the women receiving Credible Fear Interview preparation are reluctant to have a man sitting in on their prep team, are reluctant to reveal painful intimacies to men whose supportive attitudes and good will may seem foreign to them.

In such cases, our male volunteers smile understandingly and ask the client if they might be more comfortable if left the interview to a female colleague. If the answer is yes, or there is no answer but there are lowered eyes and tightly twisted Kleenexes, the men know what to do

They step out of the room and dive either into work with another refugee or administrative activity that is crucial but mind-numbing. They do whatever is necessary for the Dilley refugees to generate a scintilla of trust and sustain the courage during the lengthy asylum process.

The refugees at Dilley have nothing. Nothing but their courage, for some of them their children, for all of them their brightly colored government-issue tee shirts and new jeans--and their envelope.

Each woman carries – clutches, actually – a large brown utility envelope containing everything that controls her present and shapes her future. They don’t put these envelopes down, don’t let them stray from their sight, don’t let their children fiddle with them.

The contents of these envelopes are gold. They're a mixture of intake forms, schedules, perhaps some process notes on their case, boilerplate paperwork about the asylum process, and, of course, their all-important “’A’ number,” that nine-digit identifier that proves they "exist".

The women clutch their envelopes with fierce intensity as they contain the only physical remnants of hope they have. Already regarded as close to nothing by so many, without their envelope they really become nothing: no identity, no rights, no process, no contacts, no future.

Among the sea of bright tee shirts in the Dilley Visitation Center, one also sees these omnipresent big brown squares, the symbol of the shape of their Dilley lives. We look at these badges of existence and think, Well, at least that’s something. Something they can hold on to.

Thank you, Pam and Doug.

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