PACKET SPECIAL REPORT
A man’s hopes, dreams shatter while others determine his fate.
By: Rachel Silverman
It’s hard to hear Edy Davila on the other side of the glass.
Though he’s seated just an arm’s length away, his voice is distant and garbled through the telephone he uses to communicate. Sitting there in his navy blue scrubs and photo ID bracelet, Edy peers over at his little girl with a sad, glazed look in his eyes.
Eight-year-old Amaris plops down at station No. 9 and starts to speak softly into the receiver. Father and daughter share a quiet laugh together in Spanish and, after several minutes, her little hand passes the phone over to mom.
"What are you eating in there?" the petite, 25-year-old Jay says to her husband across the glass. "How are you holding up?" she asks, pressing the phone up against her ear.
As usual, the spare, rectangular visiting room at the Elizabeth Detention Facility, the building Edy has called home for almost 6 months now, is brimming with activity. Loud conversations in Spanish, German and Indian cross each other discordantly. Gruff guards tower in the corner, barking at unruly inmates from time to time. And young girls, most of whom look far too young to be mothers, make futile attempts to hush the little ones on their laps.
A mural on the wall, the only splash of color in an otherwise drab, white room, illustrates the Statue of Liberty, an American flag and the skyline of New York City with the twin towers of the World Trade Center. "God Bless America, Tribute to Heroes" the mural reads in large, patriotic colors.
"I’ve never seen it so crowded here," Jay says as she glances around. "My husband says they filled up his room again."
After awhile, the guard comes over to signal the end of the visit. The 60-minute time limit has been exceeded, and Edy must return to his designated chamber, his wife and child back to their home in Ewing.
Amaris waves goodbye to daddy, and she and Jay walk out to the car. On their way, they pass two sets of maximum-security doors, a security check, overhead video cameras and one mean-looking barbed-wire fence. In the deserted parking lot, where abandoned warehouses and low-flying airplanes form the scenery, the pair pile into an old minivan and begins the hour-long trek home.
This is Jay’s second visit to the detention center this week, and though she’s been coming to see Edy here since his incarceration in August, Jay says the visits haven’t gotten any easier.
"Some days I’m angry," she admits openly. "Some days I’m depressed, and I don’t want to be bothered. I kind of go day-by-day with what happens."
This week, Jay will return to Elizabeth a third time. She wants to bring Edy a bag full of clothes, just in case.
"I can only bring him 40 pounds," Jay says. "I’m hoping to fit in two pairs of shoes."
Edy will need those shoes when he’s back in Guatemala where he could be deported any day now.
Guatemala, where Edy hasn’t lived for 12 years and has no source of employment.
Guatemala, where Edy will be separated from his wife and three children, all of whom are U.S. citizens.
Guatemala, where medical experts aren’t sure Edy, a hemophiliac, can get the care he needs to survive.
Edy’s story
Edy’s story begins in a little town called Santa Rosa de Lima. It’s a speck of a town really, an outpost a couple of hundred miles from any major metropolis in Guatemala, a mere dot on the larger map of Latin America.
"It’s a pretty small town, it’s like 200 houses, maybe," Edy says through the glass. "The streets you can fit only one car on it. There are no supermarkets. They got little stores."
The oldest of four children, Edy grew up in this rural landscape, where his father worked in construction, the farm grew coffee, and everyone everyone just tried to survive the day-to-day of life amid guerrilla warfare.
It was during this period of political instability that the mass migrations from Guatemala to the United States began.
"It starts with a trickle," says Maria Juega, co-chair of Princeton’s Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund. "Migrants tend to concentrate in certain areas. People follow social ties."
Pretty soon, however, that trickle evolved into more of a gushing flow.
"There are over 10 million illegals in the U.S. today," Ms. Juega estimates. "Three million or so are minors."
From a vast sea of immigrants legal and illegal many have chosen to call New Jersey home. According to the 2000 census, New Jersey ranks among the six most popular destinations for new arrivals, with almost 1.5 million foreign-born residents in the state.
The 2000 census also indicates that 1,856 Latin Americans reside in Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, with Guatemalans making up a substantial portion.
Edy entered the United States illegally in June 1993 alone at age 17. It took him six days to make the trip from Guatemala to Mexico, and from there he had a "coyote" a paid guide help him cross the border into the United States.
"I came here because I had a cousin here in New Jersey, I came through Mexico," Edy says in his thick accent. "My family got scared about the guerrilla stuff."
But on top of safety concerns, Edy had another, more pressing reason to emigrate to the United States; he suffers from the hereditary blood-clotting disorder known as type A hemophilia.
Although medical treatment for the disease exists, the serum is not readily available in Guatemala.
"I never received medicine over there. I just stayed in bed," Edy recalls.
Since coming to the United States, Edy’s condition has improved dramatically, largely thanks to knee-replacement surgery and other ongoing medical care.
And, along with these health improvements, Edy’s whole life began to fall into place in the United States.
Edy found work at JB Winberie Restaurant on Palmer Square in Princeton first, then moved on to P.J.’s Pancake House on Nassau Street before settling into a position in the catering department of Main Street Café in Rocky Hill. He learned English through his job and interactions with customers. And in 1995, Edy met Jay through a friend, and the two quickly fell in love.
Though Jay, a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico, knew about Edy’s illegal status, she wasn’t overly concerned with courtroom legalities.
"I was just 16 years old when I got married," Jay says. "I don’t think I had it in my mind to worry about immigration."
The couple proceeded to have three children, Amaris, Edy and Ariana, now ages 8, 7 and 1, respectively.
"They just bought a house," says Edy’s lawyer, Carol Chandler. "They didn’t realize a storm was about to hit."
"They were living this total American dream," Main Street employee Vicki Lee says. "He was so driven to get there."
But at 5 a.m. on Aug. 25, Edy and Jay received a rude awakening from that dream when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials showed up at their front door in Ewing.
"I remember normal clothes, I remember blue jackets for some reason," Jay says, describing her scattered memory of that early morning raid. "It was about eight people. There were police cars out there. With everything going on, I was, like, shocked," she says.
"They just took him. I didn’t know when they took him. He didn’t know where he was," Jay says, speaking of the confusion that ensued. "He didn’t take money with him, he didn’t take anything at all. He says, ‘Let me leave them everything I have, they’re gonna need it,’" referring to his wife and children.
Legal woes
Though Edy was carted off in a matter of minutes, his path to deportation has been a much longer, more convoluted trail of legal caveats, arduous paperwork and murky, muddled mix-ups.
Within a year of entering this country, Edy applied for asylum, the legal category guaranteeing foreign refugees lawful stay in the United States. But because the political situation in Guatemala had changed by this point, the U.S. government granted few, if any, asylum applications for Guatemalan immigrants.
"People from Guatemala at that time were generally not being given asylum," Ms. Chandler says.
Like many new immigrants applying for asylum, Edy did not speak English at the time of his hearing, nor did he have a lawyer present. And although Edy’s health was shaky at best, his hemophilia condition did not work in his favor for his asylum plea.
"Having desperate medical problems is not in the definition of asylum," Ms. Chandler explained.
In 1995, Edy’s asylum case was denied, and the then-18-year-old was referred to immigration court. Unfortunately for Edy, a series of unintentional miscommunications prevented him from learning this bit of key information.
"The problem is that they went to the address he had given immigration, but he was spending a lot of time with his fiancé in Lawrenceville," Ms. Chandler says. "Two different times, his roommates signed certified receipts, but he never received them."
By June 1996, Edy’s unmet court date converted to an automatic deportation order. At this point, however, Edy and his wife and children were living in Puerto Rico, so Edy once again did not receive word of his mounting legal difficulties. After about two and a half years, the family moved back to the mainland.
It wasn’t until April 2001 when they finally went to an attorney to file for his green card based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen that Edy learned of his deportation order.
"There’s an 800 number to call to hear the details of your case," Ms. Chandler explained. "That’s when he heard about his outstanding deportation order. It was five years by the time he knew about it."
The August morning Edy was picked up at his home by ICE officials was three years after he learned of his outstanding deportation order, eight years after he married a U.S. citizen and 11 years after he emigrated to the United States.
"We don’t comment on cases pending investigation," says Kerry Gill, spokesman for the ICE’s Newark office, when asked about Edy Davila’s situation. "We can’t be specific."
"There were a lot of mistakes made in this thing," Ms. Chandler admits, looking back on Edy’s case.
For one, the legalities involved in immigration proceedings, as Edy quickly discovered, are highly confusing in and of themselves.
"It’s a bizarre, Byzantine aspect of the law," Ms. Chandler says, describing the process.
"It’s horrendous, it’s lengthy, it’s frustrating, it’s extensive," Ms. Juega added.
For new immigrants, many of whom enter the country with a limited knowledge of English, the paperwork, legal fees and long, drawn-out court dates are off-putting.
"We’re all educated people, and they are hard enough to deal with," Main Street Café employee Joy Allen noted. "It’s totally confusing."
The changing landscape of immigration enforcement also adds to the confusion, as many new immigrants are not aware of governmental policy shifts that have prompted both an upsurge in local raids and a crackdown in enforcement procedures.
"The unit that goes out to catch people is being fully funded now," Ms. Chandler explained. "The rules are being enforced differently. It’s more centralized.
"People are lulled into a feeling of false security by the lag time for all these years," she continues. "But you really need to be proactive. Trying to deal with it sitting in the jail is so much harder."
Having spent the last six months in a deportation center, Edy has learned this lesson firsthand.
"If I would’ve know in the beginning, I would’ve tried to fix it," Edy says. "I thought maybe the lawyer, he have everything under control. Now they not gonna let me go."
A lending hand
The ladies in the catering department at Main Street Café, the popular Princeton Shopping Center restaurant, can’t speak highly enough about Edy Davila.
"He’s a very sweet guy, soft spoken, a hard worker," Terri Lands says.
"A great provider for his family," Vicki Lee says. "Very dependable. … Even in the snow he’d be here at 6 a.m. to get a delivery out."
"He was a total family man. He and his wife were totally in love," Joy Allen added.
Such fond words motivated a group of Main Street employees to take action on Edy’s behalf, donating time, energy and money to his case.
Since their former co-worker’s arrest, Main Street has raised more $3,500 for legal fees and another few thousand dollars in support of Edy’s wife and kids.
Employees have coordinated a raffle, written impassioned letters and donated event tips in his name. At least 10 co-workers have been to the detention center to see Edy, and still others spend their time babysitting his three children. And although they didn’t know Edy’s wife prior to his arrest, Main Street has now hired Jay as a part-time employee in the catering department.
"Main Street paid for a mechanic when the car broke down, gift certificates for supermarket and different things for the kids," Jay says.
Perhaps most important, however, Main Street employees have been lending their legal support to the Davila family maintaining contact with lawyers, keeping tabs on Edy’s immigration proceedings and preparing legal documents on his behalf.
"We’ve been holding all the documents. Jay has to work," Ms. Allen says. "Not that we’re legal experts by any means," she says, laughing.
"I’m so thankful to them," Jay says. "They went completely out of their way to help us. They are talking to people, trying to find out what was done and what wasn’t done, what’s the next step."
"He’ll definitely have a place here when he comes back," Ms. Lands promises.
Even with Main Street’s support, Jay is having trouble making ends meet. Just this week, the 25 year-old mother of three started filling out forms to declare her welfare status.
"I’m not too thrilled about it," she says. "Not that there’s anything wrong with it," she’s quick to add. "That help is there when you need it. But I’d rather just work double hard."
In Jay’s case, try triple as she’s been juggling three jobs in order to pay the bills. And that’s all on top cooking nightly dinners, watching three little ones and visiting Edy in the detention center.
Although her mother and sister have been supportive with childcare, Jay is still having a hard time with this balancing act.
"I’m having a problem because I can’t let them stay alone," she says. "I’m so stressed out because of it. They’re not being flexible at my job. I can’t afford to lose my job, but I can’t leave my kids in the house by themselves."
In addition to the missing pair of hands and diminished source of income, Edy’s absence also has taken a serious toll on the family’s emotions.
"It’s especially hard for the kids. Little Edy the most," Jay says, adding that the 7-year-old was standing next to his father when the arrest took place. "In his mind, the police only comes and gets bad guys.
"He’s not doing that well in school," Jay continues. "He’s the kind of kid that just holds everything in. Terry from Main Street says to get him counseling, but I really can’t pay for it."
In the past six months, Edy has also missed an important part of his youngest daughter’s development.
"He missed her first steps," Jay says. "She’s growing up so fast."
"I know they miss me," Edy says softly, nodding over at Amaris. "My son, he asks me all the time, ‘Poppy, when you gonna come out?’" Edy says through the glass.
"I hope they don’t suffer like I’m suffering now," he adds.
It seems too late for this type of wishful thinking, however.
"The hardest part for me is knowing he didn’t do anything wrong but is being treated like a criminal," Jay says emotionally.
"We worked so hard to get to the place we are," she continues. "We’ve been working to get it little by little. Now in just a matter of months it’s all going downhill."
Community epidemic
While the particulars of Edy’s case his hemophilia, Main Street’s loyalty are unique, Edy’s story is representative of a larger picture of illegal immigration in the Princeton area.
"It’s not an isolated case, its part of many people’s story," Ms. Chandler says, citing 12 or 13 open cases she’s working on now. "I have four people about to get shipped out."
"In excess of 100 people, mostly Guatemalan, have been deported," Ms. Juega estimates. "A couple are still incarcerated," she adds.
"The general raids around here are reaching the absurd," Ms. Chandler chimes in.
Since April of last year, about a dozen raids have been conducted throughout Mercer County, Ms. Juega reports. During an October seizure, ICE officials swept through a home on Witherspoon Street, arresting nine men. A January raid at McCaffrey’s supermarket in Princeton Shopping Center resulted in the seizure of a long-time store employee. Raids have also taken place in West Windsor, Trenton and other Central Jersey municipalities.
Edy’s father and brother, in fact, were victims of immigration raids as well, and have both already been deported back to Guatemala.
"They go for someone and they find that person," Jay says, speaking about the ICE raid strategy. "But they also take everybody else that’s there, because they’re searching the house."
Edy and Jay have big plans for the future a future void of raids and further legal entanglements when, reunited, they can continue to build a family, pay the bills and settle into their new home.
"When I get out, I want to go to school," Edy says. "I want to learn English and electric stuff, working with cars."
"I’m thinking of taking on a new career, trying to help people in the same situation," Jay says. "When he gets back, I think it’s gonna be different. We’re gonna enjoy everybody more."
But for now, Edy and Jay must put their plans on hold, as they are faced with an increasingly grim reality.
"They not gonna let me go," Edy predicts gloomily. "I think they go straight to deportation."
"He thinks he’s just gonna be another person their gonna send back like all the people he’s seen in there," Jay says.
"Probably at this point it’s not going to turn around," Ms. Chandler confirms, echoing this pessimism. "The wagon is too far down the road."
But despite Edy’s meager chances of being released on bail, the battle is far from over.
"She’s gonna work to get him back as fast as possible," Jay says, referring to Ms. Chandler’s continuing efforts to keep Edy in the United States. "It’s not a matter of him going back and ‘Oh, that’s it.’"
Ms. Chandler, in fact, already is at work on a waiver for Edy, a document that would allow him to re-enter the country based on his marriage to a U.S. citizen.
But such a waiver does not guarantee Edy free passage back to Princeton, as he could get seriously ill as a result of his hemophilia before he’s able to make the journey.
"He wouldn’t have the medication he needs over there," Ms. Chandler explains, referring to a letter from the National Hemophilia Foundation that states this fact. "He could be paralyzed."
The waiver could also be denied, in which case Edy would be subject to a 10-year waiting period before he would be allowed to re-enter the country.
"I’m now getting pessimistic about the waiver," Ms. Chandler admits. "I’m concerned because of the more stringent rules in proving extreme hardship."
In the meantime, however, there’s not much Edy can do to help his case.
Edy has left the detention center only twice since August, both times to receive emergency medical care for internal bleeding, and has had face-to-face contact with his family on only one occasion, a visit he arranged well in advance. Aside from these rare breaks in routine, Edy’s days are monotonous, long and slow, leaving him plenty of time to think about what the future may bring.
"I don’t know if I can get my medicine," Edy wonders aloud. "I don’t know how it’s gonna work. How I gonna get it and, if I get it, how I gonna pay?" he asks.
"I guess it’s gonna be like a new country right now," Edy says, envisioning his eventual return to Guatemala.
"The main thing I worry about is how my family gonna do here," he says. "They are working so hard."
Edy once recorded all these thoughts in a journal, a private salvation he used to vent frustrations, express concerns and just plain kill time.
"I used to write but I didn’t have enough paper," he says. "So now I don’t do it.
"Now I do nothing at all," Edy says through the glass. "TV, cards, dominoes, a little bit of exercise. Not too much to do in here, being here, waiting."