They detained my husband and now my son. Legislators should put an end to ICE contracts. | Opinion – NJ.com

By Noemi Peña

Like my family, there are many other families who have experienced the painful experience of family separation due to our unjust immigration system, laws and policies. I became a single mother overnight when my husband was detained by ICE at the Essex County jail and then deported. My family has been further torn apart because my son is detained at the Bergen County Jail. Now, I face poverty, racism and I struggle daily to adjust to being alone with and strong for my 5-year-old daughter and my grandson, my son’s 2-year-old child.

This nightmare, however, is far from over for me and for our communities because the immigration detention centers in this state are still open. Several months ago, bill A5207/S3361 was introduced by Assemblyman Gordon Johnson and Senator Loretta Weinberg to prohibit correctional institutions or private entities from entering into a new contract, renewing or expanding an existing contract for immigration detention in New Jersey. However, the bill has not passed, which could have serious ramifications for more immigrant families like mine. Immediate action on this bill must be taken to put New Jersey on a path to reduce and hopefully end immigration detention.

I am well aware of the insurmountable challenges and trauma experienced by families and children who have had loved ones taken from them by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Just look at the example of my 5-year-old daughter. She continues to suffer because of the separation from her father, who she adores. She looks for him every day.

While he was in immigration detention at the Essex County jail, I tried to spare her the pain of knowing that her father was being held in that terrible place and instead told her that he was working out of state. Now, my husband faces an uncertain reality alone since he was deported back to Mexico a month ago. I still have not told my daughter the truth. She is too young to understand that her father is not coming home and I am afraid she will suffer from long-term trauma.

The cruel and unjust U.S. immigration system funnels so many of our family members, friends and neighbors into detention and this ultimately leads to their deportation. While my husband, Antonio, was detained, he never had access to a transparent process and never even had the opportunity to resolve the pending criminal charges that led to his detention. I am certain that he is not the only one who this has happened to. Many detained immigrants face this unfair system alone because they do not have the power or resources to demand a fair process.

Now with the pandemic, these detention centers have become much more dangerous and inhumane for our loved ones because they become rampant hotbeds of COVID-19. Yet, the virus is not the cruelest thing they have to deal with, because the very officials of these facilities who are supposedly there to guard them instead treat them with racism, ignorance and violence.

Besides my husband’s deportation, my son has also been detained. Since late 2020, my son has been at the Bergen County Jail and subjected to inhumane treatments. He was once taken naked from the bathroom in his cell. He was locked up and humiliated for no reason. Normally, he calls me three times a day, but I did not hear from him for two days and I found out from the family of another detainee that he had been treated in this way. It is no secret that these violations happen every day in detention and very little has been nor could be done. The officers ignore or just invalidate and dismiss the many complaints that they receive.

Lives continue to be at risk due to the inaction of the legislators who put the profits from these detention centers over the lives of immigrants. This continued back and forth over bill is only harming my son and all the other immigrants that are detained. I ask state legislators who are on the fence about the bill to please open your eyes and reflect, do you really want your legacies as legislators to include supporting detention contracts and immigrant human rights violations?

The state of New Jersey claims to be welcoming and proud of our diversity because it is a state that millions of immigrants call home, it cannot continue to allow this inhumane and painful practice. The continued detention of immigrants is not only cruel but also unjust and unnecessary. It is urgent, more than ever, for this bill to be enacted as a first step toward ending immigration detention in New Jersey. At the same time, we all need to call on the federal government to stop funding ICE and to put an end to immigration detention once and for all so that no other families have to suffer the way mine has.

Noemi Peña lives in Red Bank.

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