ARRESTED IN AMERICA
eight-month stay in the lockup.
Campos didn’t have any complaints about the facility —
though perhaps, as he suggested,
this was because his physical
state was not at the top of his list
of concerns. He was depressed
and fearful, preoccupied with the
question of whether he’d ever be
reunited with his wife and children. When he spoke about them,
his voice cracked and he looked
away. He said he felt guilty for
subjecting them to such an ordeal.
The Elizabeth detention center
houses up to 300 undocumented
immigrants at a time.
Campos described his children
as hard workers and good students, but he acknowledged that
his youngest son, Erwing, 11, has
been struggling in school since
the day of the arrest. “He’s confused,” Campos said. “He doesn’t
understand why I’m here.”
Campos is there in part because
of an uncharacteristic risk that he
took on the morning of Dec. 3. He
was driving his wife to a routine
visit with immigration authorities, as he did every month. As far
as he knew, the authorities were
either unaware or unconcerned
that he’d returned to the country
after being deported nearly two
HUFFINGTON
02.02.14
decades ago, but they were aware
of his wife, Humberta, who had
also reentered the U.S. illegally
after being deported, and were
allowing her to stay in the country as long as she checked in with
them on a monthly basis.
On most of those trips, Campos
parked at the back end of the lot,
as far as possible from the office
“Deportations are breaking
up families at a cost to taxpayers
and at the risk of emotional
and mental damage to young
people who won’t forget how
their parents are treated.”
and the agents inside. But on that
particular morning he was running late, so he drove right up
to the entrance to the building,
where anyone could see him.
A half hour passed as he waited
for Humberta to emerge from the
office, and then an hour. He began to wonder what was taking so
long. Suddenly a van pulled up behind him, blocking his way out of
the lot. He noticed the tinted windows, and that’s when the thought
occurred to him: “It’s over.” He
was arrested and brought to the
lockup in Elizabeth.
Rosa Santana, an immigrant
rights advocate with First Friends,
a group that organizes visits with