Losing Paradise... Perder el paraíso

I’ll be off these next couple of weeks, a bit of repose after a long haul. 

Perder el Paraíso (Losing Paradise) by Tomás Sánchez, Cuban painter and engraver
http://tomassanchez.net/eng/work/paintings

But we won the asylum case for a young refugee mom with two children from Honduras, so I think I can take a little break before beginning again on a new case: a mother with two children who escaped from the Guatemala/El Salvador border. Her husband and brother-in-law were killed, and the maras — the gangs — tried to kill her son too, but their dog began to bark and saved him. 

The maras ran off…

But then the family got here asking for asylum, thinking our government would help after the horrors they had endured. Instead, they were split up and the young son was put in detention hell hole. The entire family is now waiting deportation orders, besides dealing with loan sharking, of course.

Did I tell you how the young man got out of jail? It was to the tune of a $15,000 bond, set why, for what crime, you might ask? Of course he could not pay such an exorbitant fee, but when ICE threatened immediate deportation, he was so frightened, he took a shady deal from a For Profit mercenary working with ICE…

In any case, there's that old adage that we do not know what we have until it’s gone. So look around you at your freedoms and cherish them please. Take care of them, and help others who aren’t so lucky…  

I will be back in a few weeks, with batteries recharged!