Survivors of Torture

 I spent most of yesterday in jail. It was in the US Detention Center near the Mexican border. Thank God I was not a detainee. I was there, however, on behalf of a particular class of detainees, survivors of torture in other countries who are seeking asylum in the USA. There are at least 2,000 of these every year. (Probably as many as 5000,000 refugees in America were tortured prior to their arrival in the USA). They arrive having escaped torture in their home country, but not yet having all the papers to legally stay in the USA. Unfortunately, they are placed in the same prison with all others who are held for illegal entry or are waiting to be sent back to their country of origin.

I went there because I am on the Board of Directors of a local organization called Survivors of Torture, International. Our mission is to identify legitimate asylum seekers who were tortured in their home country, had to flee for their lives and are seeking a new life in America.

I am getting to know these brothers and sisters personally. Just this week: A woman from a Middle Eastern country. Her teen-aged son foolishly wrote a less than friendly note about his country’s leader in one of his computer tweets. He was identified, told that he was “dead”: He made it home. Fortunately his mother had the resources to buy a ticket for her son and herself to the USA (leaving behind her husband and other children). Of course, when she landed in the USA she did not have a visa. She was sent to a prison detention center; she to one, her 14 year old son to another!

Another survivor: Her family was pro–USA, but the real offence her father committed was to send this daughter to school. The Taliban stopped her on her way home from school, told her to drop out. She went back to school. She was stopped again. The persons who stopped her found she had an English as a second language textbook with her. They came to the house, took away her father and killed him. She is a Survivor seeking asylum in the USA.

There are stories like this every day. Survivors of Torture, Inc. (started with the assistance of a Wheat Ridge Ministries grant some ten years ago) assists these brothers and sisters get legal status, helps them find doctors who assist with their physical and psychological trauma. Sad disclosure: I have yet to meet an adult female asylum seeker who was NOT raped!

My efforts are feeble in the light of the need. I raise funds for the organization. I met with and wrote the Warden at the Detention Center expressing my thanks to him for protecting me from people who want to hurt America but also asking him to treat humanly those who are here because they believe the invitation on the Statue of liberty, “Give me your tired, your homeless, your tempest -tossed, those yearning to be free”. And I am working for Congress to pass legislation separating asylum seekers from suspected criminals like the gentleman of whom I heard yesterday. He was in Afghanistan assisting a USA helicopter force. He was threatened. He fled. When he got here he was handcuffed, incarcerated, treated like a violent criminal. Tough calls: but I want to be sure that I am on the side of those who are truly Survivors of Torture.