The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

  I’m serious, thought Jack, wishing Theo could read his mind. Kick this guy’s ass—now.

  They stopped at the metal door at the end of the hallway. Winston unlocked the door.

  “Attorneys only at this point,” he said to Theo.

  “What makes you think I’m not a lawyer?”

  Jack intervened. “I need Clarence Darrow here for two minutes.”

  “All right,” said Winston. “I’ll give you two minutes. And tell your daddy Winston from death row says ‘hey’ when you see him.”

  “I definitely will,” said Jack.

  Jack entered first, and Theo followed. The guard closed the door and locked it from the outside. Julia was seated at a small table. She rose to greet Jack as he approached.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “I’m glad I can help.”

  Beatriz was a pretty girl, so Jack was in no way surprised to see that Julia was an attractive woman, even in prison garb. She’d put her hair in braids, probably to keep life simple in jail, but it made her face even more striking. Jack probably should have given Theo a heads-up: he seemed tongue-tied through the introductions, without words for the first time since they’d left Miami.

  Julia returned to her chair; Jack and Theo sat opposite her at the table. They were surrounded by windowless walls of yellow-painted cinder block. Bright fluorescent lighting lent their meeting room all the warmth of a workshop.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Jack.

  She shrugged. “Just going through the motions, I guess. I don’t feel in control of anything.”

  “We aim to change that,” said Jack. “But first, I met Beatriz. What an amazing young woman.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Is she taking good care of Cecilia?”

  They shared a smile, which Jack took as a very positive sign. Maintaining a sense of humor was critical. “Your sister is in very capable hands.”

  Her smile faded. “I miss my girl so much.”

  Jack sensed an emotional slide was coming, which he’d anticipated. Cue Theo. “So, my friend Theo here is not going to stay long. I just wanted you to meet him and know that he’s part of the team. If for any reason, any time of day, Beatriz ever feels afraid, feels threatened, or just needs a ride, she calls this guy, okay?”

  Julia smiled with her eyes, but more at Theo than Jack. “Thank you.”

  “You’re problem,” said Theo, a clumsy combination of “You’re welcome” and “No problem.”

  Jack winced. “What?”

  Julia smiled and tried not to laugh. “I know what he meant.”

  Jack rose. Theo followed his lead, said good-bye to Julia, and walked with Jack to the exit. At Jack’s knock, the guard opened the door from the outside. Theo said nothing on the way out. He simply mouthed the word wow.

  The door closed and Jack went back to the table.

  “So, can we talk about the elephant in the room?” said Jack.

  “I’m sorry—what?”

  Her English was good, but the idiom was obviously lost on her. “Never mind. What I mean is that I spoke to your detention officer. I’m told that you’re a Level One detainee.”

  Julia nodded, her eyes cast downward.

  “You want to tell me about that?”

  “Don’t know what there is to tell.”

  “Then let me start,” said Jack. “I find myself in a really uncomfortable position here. My abuela promised Beatriz that I would get you out of here. I never guarantee anything but, honestly, I pegged you as a pretty strong candidate for release on bond. You have a daughter. She’s enrolled in public school. Your sister is legal and lives in Miami. You have a job.”

  “Had a job,” she said.

  “Cecilia mentioned that to me. We’ll talk more about Mr. McBride, but let’s sort this out first. Why did ICE label you a Level One alien with no bond?”

  “Honestly? I have no idea.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?”

  “I’m not a terrorist, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Level One goes way beyond terrorism. For example, if you were deported in the past—for any reason, even a traffic ticket—you’d be Level One this time.”

  “I’ve never been in this country before.”

  “That’s what Beatriz told me. So we can rule that out. What about a criminal record?”

  “What about it?”

  “If you’ve ever been convicted of a felony? That could put you in the Level One category.”

  “What do you mean by a felony?”

  “Any crime punishable by more than a year in prison.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I’m thinking.”

  “What is there to think about? Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

  “Not . . .”

  “Not what?”

  “Not in this country.”

  “In El Salvador?”

  “Sí.”

  “Did you go to jail?”

  “No. No jail time.”

  “What was the crime?”

  Her expression tightened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “We have to talk about it. How long ago did this happen?”

  “Six years. I was twenty-six.”

  “We’re clearly not talking about some juvenile offense. I need to know the crime you committed.”

  More silence.

  “Let me explain something,” said Jack. “I do a lot of criminal defense work. Sometimes my clients tell me everything; sometimes they don’t. I defend them either way. Your situation is different. This is not a criminal case. If we are going to keep you from being deported, we can’t simply assert your right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and say the government failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The rules are different in deportation. You’re an undocumented immigrant in violation of federal law. Period. Unless we come forward with evidence and prove some basis for you to stay, you’re gone. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “So let me ask the question again. What was the crime?”

  She remained silent.

  “Julia, if you don’t talk to me, I can’t help you.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Maybe you need a different lawyer,” said Jack, rising.

  “Stop,” she said.

  He was bluffing, but it seemed to have worked. Jack lowered himself back into his chair. He waited. Julia continued to struggle, but Jack sensed that she was almost there.

  “Julia,” he said in a soft voice, “what was the crime?”

  She looked away, then back, wringing her hands on the tabletop.

  And then she told him.

  Chapter 7

  “Manos arriba!” the Mexican police officer shouted. Hands up!

  The seven migrants on the side of the road complied. Three men were from Honduras. Two others were from El Salvador. The silver-haired woman and her teenage granddaughter were from Ecuador. They were about an hour north of Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.

  “My name is Hugo Ramirez,” the younger Salvadoran whispered to his much older friend.

  “Ramirez?” he whispered back. “Since when?”

  “Don’t give them your real name. No matter what they do to you.”

  The trip from San Salvador, destination los Estados Unidos, had started out fine. Hugo Martinez—aka Ramirez—made it through Guatemala, rafted across the Mexican border at the San Pedro River, and piled into the back of a cattle truck with seventeen other migrants, all headed for “La 72,” a migrant shelter in the city of Tenosique. The driver stopped halfway there, somewhere in the farmlands of the Tobasco region, and demanded more money. Most of the migrants coughed up the extra cash. The five men objected. The old woman and her granddaughter simply didn’t have any more money. The driver called the local police, who arrived in an SUV two minutes later—way too quickly for this not to have b
een coordinated.

  “On your knees!” the police officer said.

  The prisoners did as they were told, their hands still in the air. A second police officer went down the line, one by one, patting the migrants down and emptying their pockets. He collected everything of value—money, wallets, passports—in a paper bag. Then he handed the bag to the truck driver through the open window.

  “Gracias,” the driver said. The engine started, and the prisoners watched the cattle truck pull away with a dozen migrants in the back, seven short of capacity.

  A third cop climbed out of the police SUV and walked toward the prisoners. “What’s the situation,” he asked his deputy.

  “No documents, Sergeant.”

  “Our passports are on the truck!” one of the Hondurans said.

  “Quiet!” said the sergeant.

  The old woman came forward, pleading on behalf of her granddaughter. “Please, sir. Please don’t take us to Tapachula.” She was referring to Siglo XXI in Tapachula, Mexico’s largest detention center. It was no place for a woman of any age.

  “Don’t worry, you are not going to Tapachula.” The sergeant’s tone was anything but reassuring.

  On his order, the deputies put the old woman and her granddaughter in the back seat of the SUV and crammed the five men into the cargo compartment. It was tighter than the back of the cattle truck. The pile of sweaty bodies reached all the way up to the ceiling, and the mere act of breathing was a struggle. They bounced around in the back for thirty minutes as the SUV traveled down a nearly impassable road. Finally, they stopped at a run-down warehouse. Hugo overheard one of the officers say they were in Cárdenas.

  The rear door creaked opened, and the police officer ordered the migrants out of the SUV. Hugo’s leg was asleep from the way his friend had been lying on it, and he nearly stumbled as his foot hit the dirt. They lined up at the side of the road, the Ecuadoran woman and her granddaughter at one end, Hugo and his friend at the other end. The SUV had kicked up a cloud of dust, and as it settled around them, a band of Mexican men approached from the warehouse. Three men were armed with machetes. The fourth, apparently the leader, carried an automatic rifle. The sergeant smiled and shook hands with him, as if they were old friends. Money changed hands, blurring the lines between lawbreakers and law enforcement.

  “Welcome to the ransom hotel,” the sergeant told the migrants. “You are now the property of Los Zetas.”

  Zetas. Mexico’s most notorious crime gang, arguably the most brutal in all of Latin America, and law enforcement’s chief suspect in the disappearance of tens of thousands of men, women, and children who never made it to the U.S. border. It was enough to send chills down the spine of any migrant.

  The man with the gun approached the teenage girl. He grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Are you a virgin, chica?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He chuckled. “We’ll get a lot of money for you, my flower.”

  The old Salvadoran man looked at Hugo with despair. “We’re dead men,” he whispered.

  Hugo’s gaze traveled from one Zeta to the next, as he sized up the opposition. “Yes,” he said quietly, narrowing his eyes with resolve. “But I’m taking that motherfucker with me.”

  Chapter 8

  It was Friday afternoon, and Jack was in the Orlando Immigration Court.

  A lawyer from the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Chief Counsel, was seated on the opposite side of the courtroom. A black-robed immigration judge was at the dais, his gaze fixed on the flat-screen monitor on the wall. Julia’s image was on the screen; all Baker County Facility detainees appeared for immigration hearings via teleconference to Orlando.

  “Jack Swyteck, on behalf of the respondent, Julia Rodriguez,” Jack said for the record.

  “Simone Jerrell,” said the DHS lawyer. “For the United States of America.”

  It was a standard announcement, but Jack wondered how such words must have felt to a refugee locked up in a county jail, appearing via video conference from a little town in north Florida, up against the entire “United States of America.”

  “Good morning, all,” the judge said, “I’m Judge Alvin Greely. Now before the court is Ms. Rodriguez’s request for release on bond pending a final hearing on the government’s demand for deportation.”

  Jack’s conversation with Julia at the Baker County jail the night before had left no doubt in his mind that she should petition for release immediately. It normally took at least a week or two to get on the calendar, but Judge Greely had an opening, and Jack grabbed it.

  The judge continued, “I understand from Mr. Swyteck’s filing that ICE opposes release on any terms.”

  Jerrell rose to address the court. DHS lawyers don’t wear uniforms, but if ever they might, Jerrell had nailed it: navy blue suit, white blouse, red scarf. “That’s correct, Judge. The respondent has a prior felony conviction.”

  “What is the nature of the felony?”

  “She violated Article 133 of the penal code of El Salvador.”

  The judge scratched his salt-and-pepper beard. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the Salvadoran penal code committed to memory, Counselor, so you’re going to have to elaborate.”

  Jack rose, eager to seize control. “My client terminated a pregnancy in the first trimester.”

  “Which is a first-degree felony under Salvadoran law,” said Jerrell.

  The judge paused to consider it. “When did your client have this procedure?”

  “Six years ago,” said Jack.

  “Is this the entirety of her criminal record?”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “And I would also like to point out that she is the primary caregiver to her fourteen-year-old daughter, who is enrolled in the Miami-Dade County public school system.”

  Judge Greely leaned forward, peering out over the top of his reading glasses. “Ms. Jerrell, am I to understand that this is the kind of felony that should keep a mother separated from her daughter?”

  Jack took heart in the judge’s question, but it seemed only to invigorate his opposing counsel.

  “This is not a trivial matter,” said Jerrell. “Under Salvadoran law, an abortion is a crime punishable by up to fifty years in prison.”

  “Fifteen years?” the judge asked, obviously surprised.

  “Not fifteen,” said Jerrell. “Fifty. It’s considered aggravated murder. Not to be flip, but illegal immigrants are denied bond and deported every day in this country for offenses far less serious.”

  The judge took a deep breath, then nodded, seeming to acknowledge the letter of the law. “Mr. Swyteck, does Ms. Rodriguez concede that she was convicted of this crime?”

  “My client concedes that she pleaded guilty under an agreement with the prosecution that allowed her to serve no jail time.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she served no jail time,” said Jerrell. “The crime is punishable by more than one year in prison. It meets the definition of a felony under the U.S. Immigration Act.”

  “I understand the government’s position,” the judge said.

  Jack said, “I would also like to make the court aware of certain extenuating circumstances.”

  “Tell me,” the judge said.

  “My client terminated the pregnancy under circumstances that most people would agree should never be a crime.” Jack glanced at Julia on the video screen and proceeded lightly, sensitive to the fact that it was still a source of shame in the backward ways of her old barrio. “She was sexually assaulted.”

  Jack’s announcement seemed to have caught the government attorney off guard, but Jerrell collected herself, reloaded, and fired away. “I have two responses to that, Judge. One, there is nothing in the criminal record to confirm that Ms. Rodriguez was sexually assaulted. Two, even if she was, there are no exceptions under Salvadoran law. Rape, incest, saving the life of the mother—it doesn’t matter. Ms. Rodriguez violated the statute, she is a convicted felon under the laws and constit
ution of her home country, and under the laws of this country she should be denied release from detention pending her deportation.”

  Another deep breath from the judge. Prior to the hearing, Jack had checked his bio online. They were exactly the same age, but Greely looked fifteen years older. The carved-in-wax worry lines on his face were testimony to the burnout rate among immigration judges, who, on average, managed two thousand cases a year.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Ms. Jerrell, but my inclination is to order release and set bond at the statutory minimum of fifteen hundred dollars.”

  Jerrell took a step forward, pressing her point. “With all due respect, release of this detainee would be completely at odds with current immigration policy, which disfavors the release of detainees who are prioritized for deportation.”

  Jack had officially heard everything: a legal argument based on White House policy. It would never fly in a regular courtroom, but immigration judges weren’t part of the independent judicial branch. They were employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and its Executive Office for Immigration Review, which meant that the attorney general could direct immigration judges on how to interpret the law and, if the attorney general didn’t like that interpretation, he could fire them.

  Jack tried another angle. “Judge, I would also point out that no credible argument can be made that Ms. Rodriguez is a flight risk. She just wants to take care of her daughter. If bond is posted, she isn’t going to disappear. She will return for her scheduled hearing.”

  “Flight risk is not the issue here,” said Jerrell. “Federal law states that she should not be released from detention if she is a flight risk or if she’s a danger to the community. Mr. Swyteck conceded that she’s a convicted felon.”

  “Terminating a pregnancy after a sexual assault doesn’t make her a danger to the community,” said Jack.

  “I tend to agree with Mr. Swyteck,” said the judge.

  Jerrell was backpedaling, but she showed no sign of panic.

  “Fine,” said Jerrell, as she retrieved a file from her trial bag and then approached the bench. “We would also bring to the court’s attention this criminal complaint, which was filed against Ms. Rodriguez this morning.”