 |
| This blog was originally posted by tgdindenmark1, June 20, 2014 |
“I have experienced exhaustion before I my life, but as jet-lag set in, in addition to the lack of sleep during the past 48 hours, the shock of being placed under arrest with a no-bond ICE detainer; the concern whether my luggage would be properly taken care of and sent according to the plan to the final destination, as well as the concern about my children, whom at this point were left confused,disappointed and shamed once again by the immigration system...I was, needless to say, beyond exhaustion.
I couldn’t tell you to which jail I was taken to, but I was told it was the holding facility of Dallas
International Airport. At first glance, I was in disbelief! The more I think of it, the more humorous it becomes. It was as if I had been sent back in time and into the fictional Mayberry town from The Andy Griffith Show, and now being stuck in this godforsaken jail for the next 48 hours. (For those of you not familiar with the show, I have added a segment of an episode…just so you can have the full visual effect of what the jail looked like)
After signing countless documents, it was time for the first booking picture of many to come. I have been able to track down some of them as I thought a collage of the booking pictures would suit well as evidence of the madness of which I have experienced; copies of some of them are in my possession as they were pasted unto the signed documents. In the case of the initial booking picture, I hope I will never see it, as I am quite sure I resemble a forest troll.
Shortly thereafter, the door was slammed behind me and I found myself in the first jail cell of many to come. ‘Could I please take a shower?’ No. The jail did not have shower facilities available, I was told. ‘Could I have a blanket?’ No. The jail did not provide blankets, I was informed...but, I was welcome to use a hospital bed liner in lieu of a blanket. Those were available, I was further informed. At this point, I didn’t know whether the absolute exhaustion was the reason behind what I thought an onset of delusion. Surely, all of what I was experiencing could not be real. No shower, no blankets, no clock on the wall, no personnel present; no light in the cell other than a little amber gleam coming from outside the cell; the fact that I had conducted a due diligence, if you will, assuring no troubles once arriving in the United States, and yet, here I was sitting in a jail cell without anyone knowing my whereabouts, made the current situation surreal, to say the least.
From the days when I used to work long hours at the hospital, had left me with knowledge that the bed liner I received as a blanket had a short life span. First, it wasn’t going to cushion the stone seat which also served as a bed. And just as I had anticipated, the paper of the bed sheet began to disintegrate in a matter of hours. I spent most of the first night patching the pieces of paper together and keeping them in place by wrapping the blue plastic liner around my body in order to keep the body heat at a normal level while in the very cold cell. At one point I fell asleep, and thought I was dreaming about requesting something to drink from an officer. I found out later that I wasn’t dreaming; I did have a conversation with a female officer, but my request of getting something to drink had not been granted as I had rambled in Danish, and she [the officer] had no idea what it was that I wanted. Apparently, I had gone back to the stone bed and wrapped myself, once again, into the plastic liner (this time without the pieces of paper by which at this time had found their way unto the floor).
It couldn’t have been more than one hour later when I heard a woman’s voice in cell number two (out of the jail’s three). For the next countless hours she would be talking to herself. Unstoppable she was, and at one point I was wondering if I perhaps should try to form some of the disintegrated paper into ear plugs, but I was too tired to accomplish such an easy task. I put up with the endless conversation she had with herself, and finally fell asleep on the stone bed again. Not long after, I woke up, this time by the voice of a male. I thought it might be an officer, and as the hunger started to set in, I was going to make sure to flag him down to request food. But it wasn’t an officer; rather it was a new occupant in jail cell number three. We were now at full capacity in the jail house from hell. The hunger left me awake, and as I now had nothing but time on my hands I would try to lay out a plan according to the scenarios in my mind of what could transpire from this moment on.
The thinking, nonetheless, left me in another state of fatigue and I found myself falling into yet another state of slumber, but only for a moment. The shadow of a person by the cell startled me, and for the first time in hours I saw an officer. “Ya hungry?” He asked in a Texan accent. I don’t remember how I replied, but I staggered to the door of the cell and accepted the food which he handed through the iron bars of the cell (Andy Griffith style…), along with two boxes of fruit juice. I don’t know which made me happier- the moment of being able to settle the hunger and quench the thirst, or the fact that the food offered to the woman in cell number two made her quiet. I glanced at the breakfast sandwich wrapped in the paper napkin. It wasn’t much, but it was food. I am known to eat meat sparingly, not because I am a vegetarian, but because I find it difficult to devour anything which in a state of existence had pulse and the ability to experience emotion, and I found myself put in an awkward situation: the bacon inside the breakfast sandwich belonged at one point to such a living creature. But, as I was starving, I tried to justify eating the bacon by asking myself if perhaps I wasn’t showing the pig from which the bacon derived disrespect if I was to discard it…so, I ate it.
After eating the breakfast, I called for the officer to appear. I asked him whether he knew how much longer I was “privileged” to stay in his jail. According to my recollection, I signed a document at Dallas International Airport stating that I could be detained by the current authority for no more than 48 hours. I had the opportunity to examine this document along with all of the other documents once I was back in Denmark. A copy of the document will be inserted into the blog at a later point, in order for anyone to wonder, like I have, why I was even held in the facility of which I am now writing about. Although knowing that I may very well be extradited to Wyoming to appear in court, the time in which immigration could hold me was about to expire? He looked at me with hesitance, and replied vaguely something to the extent that a transfer to another jail was in the works. The following questions I had were of the sorts whether the facility at least had disposable wipes and toothbrushes? The officer left, but returned shortly thereafter with a disposable finger toothbrush as well as stack of wet wipes.
Now that the hunger was settled a little and the mouth was somewhat refreshed after trying efficiently to use the disposable finger toothbrush, I was ready to make a mental list of individuals whom were to be contacted. Time was ticking, and for every hour going by I was losing hope that I would be able to attend my daughter’s wedding. I came to the harsh realization that the convenience of cell phones had installed a sort of laziness and lack of ability to memorize telephone numbers. The list of whom I could call on the ancient pay phone inside the cell was therefore short. Hesitating, I picked up the phone and called the bride-to-be. In a way, I hoped for the phone to ring directly to her voicemail. The stressful state in which she already found herself, ensuring that everything was ready for the wedding would not be lessened by adding the chaos of mum being locked up in a jail somewhere undisclosed in Texas, without anyone being able to figure out whether bonds could be set and paid so that the mother-of-the-bride could attend the wedding as planned. The fact that she was in the early stages of pregnancy, left me with another reason to be worried for her well-being as well as the well-being of my grandchild in her womb. Instead of the voicemail I heard her voice in the other end of the line. And as expected, the conversation didn’t go well. Her voice reflected disappointment as well as frustration…and rightfully so. Of all things possible, how and why did this happen only days before her big day? And why hadn’t I done something to prevent this from happening, She asked. I didn’t know how to answer, and I had no energy to spare to explain to her that I had, indeed, done everything to ensure that I would bring no troubles with me. After hanging up, I decided that I would not call her again until I knew what on earth was going to happen. Sometimes “out of sight; out of mind” can be a good thing, and in this case I thought it healthy for my daughter to apply this concept to the busy time in her life. I decided that from now on, I would direct the frustration of my situation and all cries for help to get me out of jail toward the men in the family. I proceeded to go down the short list of phone number stored in my memory to inform the various male family members of my approximate whereabouts, and as they also were in disbelief, I was ensuring them that I wasn’t joking.
After a while, I lost track of time; it seemed as if it had stopped completely. The only way I was reminded that time was still moving forward, though seemingly at a very slow pace was by observing small occasions happening in within the walls of the jail. The gentleman in cell number three was released, and after sobering up from whatever the woman in cell number two had consumed, she remained quiet for the duration of the time there...until she also was released. I was handed a another meal wrapped in a paper napkin, this time it was a microwaved mini pizza with pepperoni, and this time, I didn’t give it a thought that I was digesting a slice of bread with the remains of a dead animal on it. I wrapped myself up once again in the bright blue plastic, and laid down on the hard surface. Thoughts started to enter my mind: why had I gone through all the trouble of complying with everything requested of me by the Department of Homeland Security, only to find myself back in an even bigger mess than what I had been in previously, immigration wise? Other more disturbing thoughts entered the mind: how many other non-Americans had spent time in this very cell throughout the past after being apprehended at the airport? Had they also been in a state of frustration, fatigued; then to again feel frustration; had they also been pleading to family members and friends to get them out of there using the same ancient telephone device? And how had they handled the stone bed with the hospital bed liner as the only form of blanket? These thoughts, along with all the other thoughts going through my mind in that moment left me in another state of exhaustion. Again I fell asleep, only to wake up hours later by the sound of chains. I found soon out that the chains were intended for me. In a matter minutes I found myself signing papers of release and transfer. I placed my knees on a chair and felt the cold steel of the shackles tightening around my ankles. As I turned around, the shivering cold of the handcuffs was felt on my wrists. It was time to go to the next stop: Dallas County Jail…"
TO BE CONTINUED...
-Before we go on to segment 5, let’s take a look at the detainer: “Please note the section of the detainer: “The U.S Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken the following action related to the person identified above, currently in your custody:”
Please check all that apply... Apparently one (or more) of the boxes should have been checked as the reason for detainment...oh, look! not a single one was checked. nix’n nill...zero! hMMMMmm!
Furthermore: in the section of “It is requested that you:”...please read box number 5:
Consider this request for a detainer operative only upon the subject’s conviction, is says...hmm, yes! Then why was I lead to believe that is why I was detained in this jail-hole for 48 hrs?...!
No comments:
Post a Comment