Refuge(e)

I first went to the Cibola County Correctional Facility in March 2017 shortly after it opened to house immigrants and was completely stunned by what I saw there. The facility had been closed in October of 2016 after losing its prison contract because the conditions were so bad that there had been several inmate deaths. It reopened in February 2017 under a new contract run by CoreCivic (formerly Correctional Corporation of America), the same for-profit prison company that had previously been running it - same facility, same conditions, same guards, same everything, but this time to house detained immigrants. The large majority of the immigrants held there are refugees who presented themselves at a port of entry asking for asylum and who are not in violation of any law. No man, woman, or child deserves to be incarcerated for seeking refuge when their lives are in danger. In fact, it is in direct violation of international human rights agreements that state that all people have the right to seek asylum in another country and that detention on the basis of asylum is explicitly prohibited.

Over months of going to the Cibola facility, I befriended some of the detained immigrants. Many of them were from or had passed through countries on their journey that I lived in as a child - El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or that I have lived in as an adult - Brazil and Mexico. I could relate to and visualize their journeys in a powerful, visceral way, and as an immigrant to this country myself, I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to be incarcerated upon arriving here. Alpha and Zeferino were among the first to win their asylum cases and be released from Cibola, thanks to legal representation from the Santa Fe Dreamers Project. I knew that they would want to tell their stories, and I felt that the American public needed to see and understand what is happening out there. Their stories represent those of thousands more like them - from all walks of life - who are not able to tell their stories because they are either still incarcerated, have since been deported, or didn’t survive the journey to safety. In the months since this facility first opened, there has been a rapid escalation in the detention of immigrants. There are currently 50,000 immigrants incarcerated in detention facilities nationwide - the largest number ever in this country - and 70% of them are held in for-profit prisons. Alpha and Zeferino were lucky to have legal representation and to have their cases determined in front of the Denver immigration court which has a 60% asylum case approval rate. Since their release, all of the asylum cases at Cibola have been transferred to the El Paso immigration court, which has a miniscule 1% approval rate. It is my hope that this film helps to illuminate what our country is currently doing to refugees and to remove the veil from the ways in which many of us - unknowingly, unwittingly, and unwillingly - are complicit in the financial systems that make these facilities possible. We all have a role to play in dismantling systems that prioritize profit over life and in building new models that are humane and allow for thriving, diverse communities.

Sylvia Johnson, Director