By Zoe Bowman, Supervising Legal professional at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Heart and Maria Archuleta, Communications Director at ACLU-NM
Editor’s be aware: That is the second in a collection of tales from contained in the Otero County Processing Heart, primarily based on interviews performed in the summertime of 2024 by Colorado School college students: Alex Reynolds, Sandra Torres, Karen Henriquez Fajardo, and Michelle Ortiz. We’re grateful for his or her invaluable work on this venture.
Yofer Fernando Orozco-Herrera, a basketball fanatic from Barinas, Venezuela, dreamed of a profession in public service. As a substitute, he was compelled to flee his homeland looking for security and alternative. And at age 31, he discovered himself detained on the Otero County Processing Heart in Chaparral, New Mexico.
Like many Venezuelans, Yofer participated in protests towards the federal government—activism that got here with a steep value. He stated the CICPC (Venezuela’s nationwide police) repeatedly detained and beat him—he in the end had no protected alternative however to flee the nation.
“Solitary is horrible…the guards injury us psychologically.”
Yofer skilled the psychological torture of solitary confinement whereas detained at Otero. “Solitary is horrible,” he advised us. Guards allowed him simply ten minutes every day for household calls and routinely accused all Venezuelan detainees of gang affiliation with Tren de Aragua with out proof.
Yofer spent 17 days in solitary in a tiny cell with severely restricted yard entry. Initially, guards advised him and others that ICE had ordered their isolation, however Yofer later realized the choice had been made by MTC, the personal firm that operates the ability. Even outdoors of solitary, he continued to face arbitrary cruelty within the detention system. Although he had been ordered deported 4 months earlier, Yofer remained in Otero, taking remedy for nervousness, melancholy, and nightmares introduced on by his extended confinement.
“The guards wish to injury us psychologically,” Yofer defined, describing how some guards deal with detainees with specific racism. The expertise has modified him. He now avoids chatting with guards for concern of being returned to solitary confinement.
But even in these dehumanizing situations, Yofer believes strongly in second possibilities and human dignity. “If I had been within the guards’ place, I’d by no means put individuals in solitary. I’d speak to them as a substitute and clarify the scenario calmly,” he advised us.
“We’re not unhealthy individuals. We’re fathers and moms who wish to work.”
He speaks with delight about how detainees in his and different models fashioned a brotherhood, sharing what little they’ve and supporting one another by means of the toughest occasions. For Yofer, sustaining this sense of group is an act of resistance. When the ability minimize free telephone privileges and instituted prices of 45 cents per minute—a price many detainees had no technique to pay—Yofer and others organized starvation strikes. Although these actions typically resulted in additional punishment, they maintained their solidarity.
Yofer’s desires for all times past detention are each modest and profound: to have the ability to converse along with his household and put together conventional Venezuelan dishes like arepas con jamón and pabellón with ardour fruit juice.
His message to ICE, MTC, and Otero officers is easy: “Give us an opportunity; belief us; we aren’t unhealthy individuals. We’re fathers and moms who wish to work.” As he places it in Spanish, “Con una oportunidad basta y sobra para hacerlo realidad”—one alternative is sufficient to make it a actuality.
Yofer’s story, like numerous others, underscores why New Mexico should go Home Invoice 9, the Immigrant Security Act. Our state can not proceed to be complicit in a system that strips immigrants of their dignity, topics them to arbitrary punishment, and denies them primary human rights.
