I hope everything is going well for you.
Today I write to you from my solitude. About a month ago or less, a guy came to the bunk room and chose a spot close to my own. His intentions were nothing good, as in my toughest moments he was really getting to me, but I waited a long time to act because I thought that he too came with his frustrations. He came about a month ago and he does not leave me in peace, with insults, very offensive words against me…
I was considering reporting him, but there was really no one I could tell. The majority of the officials here are quite immature when they come into the bunk room to leave food or something else. There visits are accompanied by insults of obscene words, shouts and mockery, after which nothing ever happens. They don’t even speak Spanish (There are bilingual detainees, but I don’t trust them). Tired, I sought to get out of the bunk room for an hour a day for two weeks in the legal library just to escape all of this.
Last Tuesday, I went to mass for the first time since I’ve been here… I took advantage of the visit of an official in the bunk room after my work, to report that I am sick of my cell mates and other problems and that I want to change cells, which really surprised him. He returned, and I entered the bunk room and organized my things. I spoke with two friends whom I get along with well and with a third, but he was fast asleep. One of my friends was also very surprised that I told him: “they’re probably going to move me to a different room,” and one of them asked me to advocate for more order in this place and to find a way to report the violence in the form of beatings that happen between the leaders of the gangs that live next among us.
That’s when I went and broke the silence. They took me to an ICE official. I asked for my immediate removal from that cell, and they took me to the infirmary and left me in a room for just one person with certain privileges to come and go… the truth is that I was called upon to report the incident, and then the female director of ICE told me that I would not return to that cell, after an intense conversation. She told me that the officials would go back there to get my belongings and bring them to my new place, and that is what happened.
The strange thing is that at 1:00 am 3 officials came to speak with me regarding a coffee maker that I and a Salvadoran guy had bought when we first came here. They said that the machine now belonged to me because the other guy was already deported back to El Salvador, but I had put said coffee maker in the service of everyone. I explained this to the officials, and they understood. After an hour or more, three different officials showed up to question me about my exit from the cell, because some of the inmates were beating on the window violently demanding their coffee maker back. I dared to tell the officials that they are the ones responsible for imposing order in that bunk room, not me. I can gift the coffee maker to them and it costs me nothing to do so, but that the violence in this cell should stop because there are victims in there. And if they want to question so and so (I gave them three other names) well they can do it immediately. So the officials left and didn’t come back.
It’s a very nice story, now that it’s over. I am also writing with more details to our lawyer. I also wrote to him six days ago…
That’s all, Adam, may God bless you.
