Herminia rushed out of the Tucson cathedral
to reunite with her daughter Rosy who had just been released after spending
seven months in the immigration prison in Eloy, Arizona. Herminia had been arrested in front of the
White House, carried out a two week hunger strike in front of the ICE
(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) office in Phoenix, and spent the last four
weeks in the cathedral in her campaign to win her daughter’s release.
Mother and daughter ran towards each other
and came together in a tearful embrace surrounded by the light of the TV
cameras. “I struggled to get out and I
dreamed of being with my mom,” said Rosy.
“Never give up and always struggle to realize your dreams.”
“This is where Rosy returned to life,”
Herminia told me earlier inside the cathedral.
“She’s on her way. She called and
said, ‘Mom, I’m out now. The nightmare
has ended.’”
I visited Rosy in the Corrections
Corporation of America prison on March 2.
We passed through five locked gates and doors on our way to the visit
room. She was in a green uniform and we
could only be with her for one hour.
Rosy told me that her family moved to the
U.S. when she was just 11 years old.
They lived for two years in Denver and seven years in Mesa, Arizona.
In December 2012, the family went back to
the state of Quintana Roo in southern Mexico because Rosy’s grandfather was
dying of cancer. They found the country
had changed during the time they had been gone.
They were at risk of being kidnapped because the criminal groups thought
they had money from their time in the U.S. and her father was brutally beaten. Rosy and Fatima (her 13 year old sister) were
both bullied a lot at school.
They fled from Quintana Roo and came north
to Nogales. Herminia, Rosy and Fatima presented
themselves at the border here on September 22, 2013 and asked for asylum. Herminia and Fatima were released that same
day on parole but Rosy was sent to the immigration prison in Florence. The next day, on her 20th birthday, she was
transferred to the prison in Eloy.
Herminia passed the first interview for
political asylum when the official found that she had a credible fear of
persecution if she were sent back to Mexico.
Rosy’s case was moving much more slowly and Herminia decided the only
option was to launch a public campaign to win her daughter’s release. Rosy was finally released on bond on April 28
and said, “I can’t believe I’m out here and not in there.”
The Obama administration has deported more
than two million people and two thousand women are currently being held in the
Eloy immigration prison. “What would
happen if Obama’s daughters, or wife, were separated from him?” asked
Herminia. “What would he do?”
