A defendant is presented only to the immigration court. He is 6 years old.
A defendant is presented only to the immigration court. He is 6 years old.
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It was shortly before Thanksgiving in one of the immigration courts of San Antonio, when the third appearing before Judge Anibal Martinez entered the room without a lawyer, wearing a gray winter hat embroidered with a huge pair of blue eyes on each side of a large tuft of red stuffed animal.
When the sheriff asked her name, she answered proudly: Wilder Hilario Maldonado Cabrera.
"How old is Wilder?" Asked the immigration judge.
One of the lawyers present in the room with other clients came forward to speak for the boy on a voluntary basis. He turned to see him to ask his age in Spanish.
"Six years," he said, legs dangling in the chair of the table of attendees.
Wilder, a chubby and smiling Salvadoran child, a two-toothed fop, was the youngest appearing on the list of juvenile cases that day. But that was not all that made it special. He was also one of the last children still in government custody for having been affected by the administration's much-criticized zero-tolerance policy; Many of them are still waiting to reunite with their parents detained in the United States.
The policy, announced with great fanfare in April to sneak away a couple of months later in the face of opposition from both parties, dictated that immigration authorities bring criminal charges against anyone who was detained for crossing the border illegally, in addition to separating any minor companion.
More than 2,600 immigrant children, including about a hundred of them under the age of five, were separated from their parents before a federal judge ordered the administration to stop the policy and reunite affected families. Most have already returned with their parents or other relatives. Some 120 children are still in the custody of federal authorities because their parents had already been deported and about thirty cases have to do with children whose parents have a criminal record. While immigration authorities and those who advocate for immigrants stumbled to reunite these families, courts like Judge Martinez's often seemed rather judgmental of the familiar.
On the Wednesday that Wilder showed up, the courtroom was full of kids, almost all teenagers who had entered the United States on their own and were not separated from their relatives at the border. The boys sat on the back benches dressed in well-pressed trousers and button-down shirts, while three pretty pregnant young women were at the front, one of them complaining of pains.
"Did I hear that we have a minor with health problems?" Judge Martinez said from the stand. "No problem if you feel uncomfortable or need to leave at any time."
One of the first to pass before the judge was an eleven-year-old Guatemalan girl in a flowered dress and hair tied in a ponytail.
He sat down in the black leather chair and almost did not speak while his lawyer Mónica Cueva Kretzschmar explained that the minor admitted having crossed the border illegally and wished to be sent back to Guatemala with her parents (her case was not one of the of separation of families). The judge asked if the girl had made the decision voluntarily. The lawyer said yes. He also asked if his return posed risks or dangers. The lawyer answered no.
The judge then addressed the girl: "I understand that you want to go back to your parents who are in Guatemala." She nodded. "I just granted that request. I wish you all the best".
The girl got up from her seat smiling, giving thumbs-up to the lawyers in the pews.
The next turn was Wilder.
The judge asked about his father. Was he still in detention?
The prosecutor said he did not know.
In reality, his father was still being held in a federal immigration detention center less than an hour away from the courthouse. Father and son had been separated on June 6 when they crossed the border illegally and asked for asylum. Wilder was placed in a temporary guardianship home, while his father, Hilario Maldonado, was sent to a detention center. Since then, they had only been able to talk on the phone sporadically.
Shortly after Maldonado entered the country, the authorities determined that he did not qualify for asylum, but they refused to reunite him with his son until the decision was appealed, since Maldonado had lived in the United States for more than a decade and had an arrest warrant for driving while intoxicated in Florida. In a non-migratory context, this charge would almost never cause the loss of parental rights, but some immigration lawyers say they have seen that immigration authorities use minor and non-violent criminal records to justify immigrant parents being separated from their children. on the border. Government officials say that even if a federal court ordered the cessation of the separation of children under the guidelines of zero tolerance, the exception was cases in which the parents presented a danger to the safety of minors.
Meanwhile, María Élida Cabrera, Wilder's mother, was still in El Salvador trying for the first time to support her other children on her own. She commented that Mr. Maldonado was the one who mainly supported the family, and that, since he was arrested, she and her children survived with the help of American advocacy and help groups for immigrants who had heard about their son Wilder's case.
None of them knew if they would be together again, or when. And less the little Wilder. Raised in a small village on the northern border of El Salvador, it was obvious that he did not know what to do in front of the metal detector, much less realize the meaning of being in court.
Before entering the room, the sheriff had to give him a little push to go through the detector, as the boy froze in fear as he saw the lights flickering beside him. "Do not get nervous," she told him.
The lawyer helped Wilder put on his hearing aids so he could listen to the court interpreter, as if the language was the only thing that prevented him from understanding the whirlwind of the proceedings.
He then asked the judge to put aside any decision he might make about the child's asylum case until Wilder's lawyer could appear with him. The judge agreed.
"Wilder, may it go well," he said, sending the boy into uncertainty. "We will see you soon".
Wilder said goodbye to the judge shaking his hand and pretending to throw cobwebs from his wrists, since he is a great Spiderman fanatic. When he left the room, he also waved goodbye to the friendly bailiff, adding: "Bye cop."
Translation by Mati Vargas-Gibson.
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