In early January, 11-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano was on her way to her Columbia Heights elementary school with her mother when they were detained by ICE agents and taken to the family detention center in Dilley, Texas.
She was the first child in the district taken into custody during the Twin Cities immigration crackdown. A month later, she’s still there with her mother. Officials on Tuesday called for Elizabeth’s release, but the family’s lawyer says a worrisome measles outbreak at the Texas center is making the task harder.
Tracy Xiong, a social worker at Highland Elementary School in Columbia Heights, recounted the chaotic day when Elizabeth and her mother were taken into custody on the way to school. Elizabeth’s father rushed to the school for help finding his daughter.
“Elizabeth was able to call her dad and an ICE agent said they were going to bring her to school. Several staff members, including myself, waited outside the school building for a vehicle to approach and drop her off. No one ever came,” Xiong said.
Xiong spent hours making calls, trying to locate Elizabeth and her mother. But by that afternoon they learned Elizabeth had been flown down to Texas, a practice that lawyers say is designed to move detainees beyond the reach of legal counsel.
“In my profession, I have seen many people break down in grief, but the image of Elizabet’'s father will stay with me forever. I watched him sit in his car, bury his head in his hands and cry uncontrollably, and those are images you do not forget,” Xiong said.
‘They’re very unhappy there’
The detention center is the same place 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was held and where four other Columbia Heights students who were detained by ICE in recent weeks are being held.
“They’re very unhappy there,” said Bobby Painter, managing attorney for the Texas Immigration Law Center, an organization helping to handle the case of Elizabeth and her mother.
The facility, which Painter said has the capacity to hold about 2,400 detainees, is currently dealing with an outbreak of measles.
“Medical care is pretty subpar in every detention center I’ve ever worked in,” Painter said. “A lot of times they’re told, ‘Just take ibuprofen, don't worry about it.’ And to the measles outbreak — that kind of thing is pretty common.”
“Unfortunately, when you have a lot of people housed in a small space,” he added, “everybody’s kind of confined together. And you know, they’re from all over the world. Vaccination status is varied and you can spread (illnesses) pretty quickly.”
Painter said it’s possible the outbreak will harm the health of Elizabeth and other children while they wait for court orders.
He also believes that illness has the potential to delay releases for people with deportation orders who might otherwise be able to participate in court proceedings.
“The limitations of movement and being able to bring a quarantined individual to court, for example, can slow everything down pretty significantly if you’re set for a merit hearing in your asylum case and you can’t be moved to see the judge,” Painter said. “You could see your case reset a month or more into the future, and it just needs more time and detention.”
Children ‘fear deportation’
Fortunately for Elizabeth, Painter believes an in-person hearing won’t be necessary. The family currently has an open asylum case. Painter said they should not have been detained and said her legal team is submitting a habeas corpus petition and requesting a judge order her release.
“These are people who are going through the process. This family had an immigration lawyer that was representing them in their active asylum case. They had no criminal history. They committed no offenses that would make them newly deportable or subject to detention,” Painter said.
“They were just living their life going through the process as it was intended to be gone through,” he said. I think it’s really important for people to understand that we’re not just detaining criminals or ne’er do wells, as the Trump administration wants you to believe. It’s working families enrolled in schools who are working through our immigration system the way they’re allowed.”
Xiong said much of her work during the two-month immigration crackdown involves coordinating food deliveries afraid to leave their homes and organizing transportation for children to and from schools.
She said teachers and school staff are committed to keeping kids safe but acknowledged they are exhausted.
“Students used to be absent because they were sick. Now they’re absent because they fear deportation,” she said. “Students used to ask me for help navigating friendships. Now they ask me how to cope with ICE breaking apart their families and taking their friends.”
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