This happened on 8th of Dec. 2008
Our car drove into the parking lot and came to a halt. Prof. Westerman or Bill, to avoid any suspicion, asked me if I wanted to talk to a Tibetan who spoke Mandarin. As I wanted to interact with someone close to my continent, I accepted. His name was Jampa Dhargyal. We went into the detention center after we were informed by Mike that it was not too crowded in there. The detention center looked like a dull, lifeless factory and it was heavily secured by fences and cameras.
The waiting room was not big and there were only sixteen seats, two vending machines and a reception. I took a number, sat down and observed the room. When I saw a poster which announced the vision and mission of the detention center or of, rather as the way the authority put it, “adult correction center”, I felt uneasy and annoyed for the phrase “adult correction” was so condescending. Megan told me that “adult correction” was normally used in the US as euphemism for “prison.” The usage of such phrase implies that the refugees detained are somewhat “wrong” or “bad” and they should be “corrected.” It was insulting and hypocritical, I thought. I recalled quickly a newspaper article which reported that U.S gained 30 billion dollars by importing weaponry to conflicted countries and sometimes to both opposing parties of a conflict. By doing so, U.S (and countries like China and Russia) are fuelling conflicts and indirectly contributed to the force migration of many refugees. Then they resentfully detained them. A good way to “correct” their contribution, I thought.
When my number was called, I presented my passport and a verification letter from Princeton and told them I wanted to visit Jampa. The female officer examined my documents and when she saw Bill standing beside me, she asked sarcastically, “You’re in charge of bringing them here, aren’t you?” The officer gave me a visitor badge and I went in to the screening room. Then, a door opened and there was a small transit space before I entered the next door which led to the visiting area. The visiting area was enclosed by soundproof glasses and walls. There were a few attorney-visiting room and I saw detainees discussing about their cases with their attorneys in the rooms. The weeping family members further gloomed the room. The mood contrasted with the colorful painting of United States and Status of the Liberty on the wall.
While I was waiting for Jampa, I spoke to a Sri Lankan and a Tibetan. The Sri Lankan was in his fifties and he was amiable. We talked about Malaysia, my parents, university life, his family and his life. I was told that his wife and daughter were in New York and to my surprise, he preferred to talk to them over the phone than to meet them in the visiting area. I was unsure if it was appropriate to ask him why and I wondered if he was embarrassed to let them see him in that state. From our conversation, I gathered some information about the life in Elizabeth. Numbers of detainees were counted at 6am, 8am, 1pm, 4pm, 8pm and 12am everyday and nobody was allowed to move during the counting. Meals were provided at 7am, 12pm and 5pm. When asked about the quality of the food, he replied, “I don’t care so much about the food. I care about freedom. That’s what matters to me.” I asked him why he didn’t choose to go to Canada as his sister was there and he said he would apply to Canada if his case in US fails. Bill later told me that his case has failed at the Federal Court and BA and once his daughter get a degree, he would not care about asylum-seeking anymore and would return to Sri Lanka.
The next person who I spoke to was a Tibetan, a friend of Jampa. He could speak little English but sometimes I could hardly comprehend him due to his unclear pronunciation. He told me that the officers would get angry at him occasionally because of his incompetence in English. He had a wife in India and he had been in India since he was young. He could not return to China as he did not have a passport and he would be imprisoned or even killed. “I thought US is good…so I came here.” He came to the US with a fake Nepalis passport and when he arrived at the airport, the immigration officer detected his fake passport and detained him. “It’s no[t] good here,” he replied when asked about the condition in the detention center. He had been in the detention center for thirteen (or eighteen) months. His application for asylum has failed the first time and he was appealing. I thought that he was in a disadvantage position to seek asylum as he did not have a lawyer and he did not speak much of English. We chatted about his family, India and Malaysia while we were waiting for the counting –which had lasted for an hour at the time—to end.
It was already an hour since I had entered the visiting area but I have not seen Jampa. When I asked the female officer for Jampa, she notified me that my request was not registered in the computer. She then called for Jampa and after ten minutes, an Asian looking man entered the visiting room. His features especially his nose resembled those of people from Mongolia, Xingjia and of course, Tibet. We sat down and picked up the phone. “This is the first time I am speaking to someone [from outside] since I came here…I asked my friends why someone wants to speak to me but they did not know,” he said, “Thank you for talking to me.”
My heart sunk when he told me that his father was killed by the Chinese authority and he had to flee Tibet, leaving his mother and sister behind. His mum did not know about his detention because he could not contact them as there was no basic infrastructure like telephones in his village. In a way, I could feel and understand his anxiousness and homesickness. Even if he could contact his mum, would he ever tell her that he was in the detention center-- news which could make an aging mum, who was a few thousand kilometers away, worried and upset? His village was extremely rural. By motorbike, it required seven days and a day to travel to Lhasa and Cheng Du Sheng respectively. He was thirty-five years old and he had never been to school. Thus he was illiterate both in Mandarin and Tibetan, let alone English. “What are you hoping to do now?” I asked. “I hope that I can stay here…if I go back to China, I will be caught or killed.” I remained silence for I knew that he was in a hard situation for asylum-seeking due to his illiteracy and lack of legal representative.
I was struck when he told me that he had been to India and Malaysia. I was a bit doubtful because, frankly speaking, it is hard for an illiterate person to obtain traveling visa and to travel in today’s world. What did he do when he had to fill in the immigration form upon his arrival at Malaysia? I did not get to ask him as I only realized this after our conversation. Besides his travel experience, his positive attitude struck me too. He told me that at least the condition in Elizabeth detention center was better than that in the prisons in China and at least he got clothes and enough food. I could not imagine the situation of the detention center in China. Perhaps he was still optimistic as he had not been there long.
Throughout my conversations with these three men, I never failed to mention or discuss about religion with them. I felt that that was the most things I could do to lighten them. To the Sri Lankan man, I told him that God would never give up on him. To the Tibetan, I told them that their good deeds would serve them good in the future for Karma never fails. After talking in person to those whose lives were displaced, I felt humbled and helplessness. The Tibetans’ cases strike me a lot and I realized the harsh disadvantage that illiterate or less-educated people had to suffer due to the strict immigration policy. How are they going to present a testimony which consists of the essential 3Cs: chronology, corroboration and consistency? How are they going to convince the asylum officer or judge? Besides that, I started to wonder if all this disorders and sufferings were inevitable or could be avoided. I cannot help but to feel that as if the world and society are going in the direction parallel to what the Law of Thermodynamics states: the total entropy of any system tends to increase over time. When I feel this, for once, I hope that the law can be violated.
(...this is just a side thought..The above writing is what I hope people will know and be aware of. There are many things (and shit) that happened in the world and people should not be so ignorant about it. This may be too far fetched, but this is also the main reason why I hope people will get out of their bubble, watch less soap dramas (ou xiang ju), read less about Britney Spears, be less self-pity and listen to the world!)
