Brother, I'm Dying - Edwidge Danticat [76]
“Yes, but I do not remember.”
(I couldn’t remember either whether or not he’d been in the United States in 1984. I knew he had been the year before, during the summer of 1983, when he got the voice box, but could not recall if he’d returned the following year.)
“Have you have any encounter [sic] the United States Immigration Services before?”
“No.”
“Why did you leave your home country of last residence?”
“Because I fear for my life in Haiti. And they burned down my church.”
“Do you have any fear or concern about being returned to your home country or being removed from the United States?”
“Yes.”
“Would you be harmed if you are returned to your home country of last residence?”
“YES.”
“Did you understand my questions?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any questions or is there anything you’d like to add?”
“No.”
My uncle was then asked to sign the statement. He was supposed to have initialed each page of the translated transcript, but instead he signed his name on all five pages. A CBP log shows he was then returned to the waiting area, where at 7:40 p.m. he was given some soda and chips.
At 10:03 p.m., my uncle Franck received a call at his home in Brooklyn. The male CBP officer who called him asked Uncle Franck whether Uncle Joseph had filed an application to become a U.S. resident in 1984. Uncle Franck said no.
Later, Department of Homeland Security files would show that a September 22, 1983, request had been made by Kings County Hospital, where my uncle had had his surgery and subsequent follow-up visits, to the United States Department of Justice, about my uncle’s immigration status. As a result of this, on February 14, 1984, an immigration “alien” file, number 27041999, a file he was never aware of, was opened for my uncle. The file was subsequently closed.
“He’s been coming to the United States for more than thirty years,” Uncle Franck remembers telling the CPB officer who called him. “If he wanted to stay, he would have stayed a long time ago.”
Uncle Franck then asked if he could speak to Uncle Joseph.
“They say they’re going to put me in prison,” Uncle Franck remembers Uncle Joseph saying. It was difficult to register emotion on the voice box, but Uncle Franck thought he sounded like he was caught up in something he had no way of understanding.
“It’s not true. They can’t put you in prison,” Uncle Franck recalls telling him. “You have a visa. You have papers. Did you tell them how long you’ve been coming here?”
Uncle Franck then asked Uncle Joseph to put the CBP officer on the phone again.
“He’s going to Krome,” the officer said.
“He can’t,” Uncle Franck said. “He’s eighty-one years old, an old man.”
Uncle Franck then asked if he could speak to my uncle one more time.
The CBP officer told him, “We already have a translator for him,” and hung up.
At 11:00 p.m., my uncle was given some chips and soda again. At 11:45 p.m., he signed a form saying his personal property was returned to him. The form lists as personal property only his one thousand and nine dollars and a silver-colored wristwatch. At 1:30 a.m., I received my phone call. At 4:20 a.m., my uncle and Maxo were transported to the airport’s satellite detention area, which was in another concourse. By then my uncle was so cold that he wrapped the woolen airplane blanket he was given tightly around him as he curled up in a fetal position on a cement bed until 7:15 a.m. At around 7:30 a.m., they left the detention area to board a white van to Krome. Maxo was handcuffed, but asked if my uncle could not be handcuffed because of his age. The officer agreed not to handcuff my uncle, but told Maxo to tell my uncle that if he tried to escape he would be shot.
There is a form called a Discretionary Authority Checklist for Alien Applicants, which is meant to assist examining Customs and Border Protection officers in deciding whether to detain or release a person like my uncle. On the checklist are questions such as: Does the alien pose a threat to the United States, have a criminal history or terrorist affiliations or ties? Is s/he likely to