When migration representatives apprehended Douglas Menjivar in June, it had not been his very first time.
Menjivar, a 50-year-old master technician initially from El Salvador, had actually resided in the USA for a lot of the last twenty years. A years prior, he would certainly invested 2013 to 2015 in immigrant apprehension, consisting of at the Houston-area Joe Corley Apprehension Facility, which is run by the for-profit jail service provider GEO Team. What he withstood there transformed the training course of his life.
While Menijivar was held at the Corley center dealing with feasible expulsion, one more detainee sexually attacked him two times with the assistance of a partner, he claimed in a main issue and in meetings with the Texas Observer and various other media. The duo targeted him after he faced them for raping an 18-year-old. Upon seeing the shocked teenager sobbing, Menjivar, that had actually been resting on a leading bunk, used to trade areas, thinking the offenders would certainly not strike a grown up guy. Yet both leapt him as he rested: One held Menjivar down, pushing a cushion in his face, while the various other attacked him.
After one more strike in the shower, he slid and dropped while leaving his assaulters, creating him to lose consciousness and shed a substantial quantity of blood from a gouge in his head. Upon gaining back awareness in the apprehension facility infirmary after the strike, a Migration and Traditions Enforcement (ICE) manager buffooned him, calling him “foolish,” he claimed. He was entrusted to a two-inch mark on his scalp that continues to be noticeable.
Later, Menjivar notified supporters, that pressed ICE to examine the situation and launch him. In March 2015, then-U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee contacted the ICE Houston area workplace supervisor, promoting for Menjivar’s launch. In action, ICE authorities did something unanticipated: Within a pair weeks, they launched him, though he still had an energetic elimination order. ICE typically might make use of prosecutorial discernment to delay expulsion on a case-by-case basis, yet under the 2nd Trump management such discernment has actually mostly vanished, according to professionals consisting of Menjivar’s attorney, Ava Benach.
After his launch, Menjivar put his discomfort right into campaigning for, wishing that immigrants would certainly not need to sustain what he had. Regardless of staying in lawful limbo, Menjivar added to an across the country civil liberties issue that supports submitted versus the Division of Homeland Safety And Security (DHS) in 2017. Neighborhood Campaigns for Checking Out Immigrants in Arrest (CIVIC), the team that lodged the issue, declared that from 2010 to 2016 the DHS Workplace of the Assessor General, the division’s guard dog, took not enough activity to check out sexual offense cases. (CIVIC has actually considering that transformed its name to Liberty for Immigrants.)
Menjivar likewise signed up with Texas lobbyists opposing the growth of immigrant imprisonment, taking part in marches to object prepare for yet one more for-profit apprehension facility that was eventually constructed near Corley.
For the years after his launch, he held a short-term job license, and he wed an American resident in 2017. Yet he was not able to get a permit, regularly reporting to ICE till June 10, when representatives apprehended him after he dutifully showed up for his consultation. That day, they took him to the brand-new Montgomery Area ICE center– the very same facility he had actually opposed.
Locked up once again, Menjivar had not been concentrated on the injury he had actually endured, his advocacy, or his impending expulsion to El Salvador, the nation he had actually run away in 2013 after functioning covert for authorities. Rather, he concentrated on his better half, Monica Logan, that required surgical procedures as component of therapy for bust cancer cells and a persistent skin disease.
Menjivar had actually been her single caretaker, considering that her various other family members endured of state. Currently, there was no person to aid.
Prior to they wed, he would certainly assured God to look after Logan, and, “if essential, provide my life for her,” Menjivar informed the Observer in a video clip phone call from the apprehension facility. Yet, behind bars, he could not also drive her to the medical facility.
Menjivar got in Texas in 2004 by going across without permission. He was apprehended by Boundary Patrol representatives, he claimed, and got a migration court day. Menjivar located job as a technician on the East Shore, yet he did not stand for court (he informed the Observer he shed his method the New york city public transport system), and he got an expulsion order in absentia in March 2005. He maintained staying in the nation as an undocumented immigrant; he created no rap sheet.
The day prior to New Year’s Eve in 2009, Menjivar returned from New Jacket to El Salvador to look after his unwell dad and remained for almost 3 years. While there, he functioned covert with authorities to check out corrupt authorities connected to arranged criminal activity, Menjivar claimed in an Observer meeting and a 2013 practical anxiety meeting with DHS. Nonetheless, he rapidly found out that the authorities had actually not secured his identification. Being afraid for his life, he went across the Texas-Mexico boundary once again in 2013 looking for safe house and was apprehended. A migration court restored his previous elimination order, and he was secured for the following 2 years.
Menjivar tried to go after “withholding of elimination,” a kind of lawful alleviation looked for by individuals disqualified for asylum that secures them from expulsion yet does not straight bring about a permit. Yet he eventually shed his situation. He tried to combat the rejection, yet he was prevented by inefficient help from a legal representative that had actually stopped working to provide crucial proof and missed out on a declaring due date on allure, the Board of Migration Appeals (BIA) later on located. That lawyer, Afton Izen, was put on hold from exercising regulation in 2018 and disbarred in 2021 after various other customers whined that she stopped working to finish documents and interact regarding their instances, according to State Bar of Texas documents. (Izen passed away soon after being disbarred.)
During his very first job in apprehension, Menjivar befriended a Houston immigrant legal rights lobbyist called Hope Sanford while assisting to lead an appetite strike. After ICE utilized its discernment to launch him, she held him in her home as he waited to get a job license.
In 2016, Menjivar fulfilled Logan. They resided in the very same apartment building and ended up being good friends while talking in the car park. Within a week, he informed her: “You’re mosting likely to be my better half,” and she giggled. In July 2017, they wed in Sanford’s yard.
After weding a resident, he made a number of efforts to end up being a lawful irreversible homeowner.
As a tipping rock, he looked for a U-visa, which is booked for criminal activity sufferers, based upon the attacks in apprehension. Nonetheless, considering that ICE and GEO Team’s team never ever recorded the strikes, migration authorities claimed he did not have evidence to develop that the criminal activities had actually taken place. He offered proof of relevant injuries: The terrible attacks left irreversible damages to his body and a sexually transmitted disease, according to meetings and clinical documents, yet neither regional authorities neither ICE would certainly approve a U-visa application.
In 2024, the Biden management introduced a program that would certainly have enabled some 500,000 undocumented partners of U.S residents to end up being legal irreversible locals, according to DHS quotes. Menjivar used, yet he seemed disqualified considering that he would certainly went across the boundary a 2nd time without permission after he would certainly currently been provided a last order of elimination, according to Benach and a government site detailing the plan. That slim opportunity went away after Texas, together with 15 various other states, filed a claim against to obstruct its application and a government court ruled the program prohibited last November.
His attorney discovered various other opportunities, and she ultimately had some success: In September 2024, the BIA resumed his withholding of elimination situation.
Menjivar maintained reporting to ICE for check-ins: in some cases yearly, in some cases every 3 months. Sanford, that remains in her 70s and considers him her followed boy, had a tension regarding the June 10th sign in– his 2nd one considering that Trump’s political election.
Regardless of the nationwide migration suppression, Menjivar and his better half were optimists and made prepare for his 50th birthday celebration, which would certainly be 2 days later on. They would certainly commemorate at a Tex-Mex dining establishment where they were regulars. Logan had actually currently purchased his presents: brand-new chanclas, 2 brand-new tee shirts, 2 sets of shorts, and 2 sets of pants. Yet he never ever reached use them.
Rather, representatives apprehended him, in spite of his resumed situation. The complying with day, Benach claimed she submitted a habeas corpus request and an emergency situation momentary limiting order to test his expulsion.
On June 12, his birthday celebration, Logan saw Menjivar. She could not also bring him the card she had actually made. They might just talk with a phone, split by a thick pane of glass. It was just one of couple of times she would certainly ever before seen him weep.
Throughout Menjivar’s 2nd job in migration lockup, the guards described detainees by the variety of their designated bunk bed. Menjivar was currently number 76. “Below, they treat us like rats,” he claimed by video clip call September. (ICE rejected the Observer an in-person meeting, mentioning “functional protection factors.”)
While within, Menjivar befriended more youthful immigrants and attempted to aid them. Fredy Chub Choc, an 18-year old asylum-seeker from Guatemala, had actually been put in the guys’s system in spite of being a trans lady. Menjivar took on others that intimidated or dishonored her, she informed the Observer.
Yet Menjivar was handling his very own psychological and physical wellness concerns. He was dispirited. And, on a jail diet regimen heavy on rice and beans, without accessibility to the particular diabetic issues drug he had actually been taking, he acquired almost 40 extra pounds.
Every loss, around the wedding anniversary of his attacks, he experiences headaches, in some cases tossing type his rest. Yet this year, his better half was not there to comfort him. He normally handled to rest just an hour or more, also when he paid various other detainees to protect his bed. In September, he claimed he attempted to take his very own life, and guards moved him to holding cell for 3 days. He tried one more cravings strike, yet team intimidated to compel feed him, he claimed.
Reached by e-mail, an ICE speaker informed the Observer that he would certainly give remark for this tale, yet he never ever did so.
” I directly welcome any type of united state resident, or anyone that claims this is simple [or] that they treat us well, pertain to an apprehension facility. Keep right here … without seeing your family members, without seeing your better half, without seeing your children, without seeing the flexibility that this nation discusses,” Menjivar informed the Observer a couple of days after leaving holding cell, his voice periodically shivering as he combated rips.
Despite his very own discomfort and the opportunity of expulsion, Menjivar’s primary fear was his better half. With her caretaker apprehended– and his ask for parole and bond rejected– Logan maintained holding off surgical procedures.
Considering whatever, Menjivar and Logan made a tough choice. They asked his attorney to go down the resumed migration lawsuit. With each other, they made a decision to leave the nation where Menjivar had actually invested regarding twenty years, and where his better half had actually lived her whole life. They asked a migration court to permit him to willingly leave for Spain, where Menjivar has 2 grown-up little girls from a previous connection and 4 grandchildren.
Once the court authorized their strategy, Logan prepared her partner’s bag, loading brand-new birthday celebration garments. She had actually returned the originals and purchased the very same products 2 measure, to make up his weight gain.
Logan had actually left the bag at the apprehension facility a couple of days ahead of time. Yet, as he prepared to leave, ICE rather offered Menjivar the unclean set of pants he would certainly endured the day of his apprehension– stained with pee from the hours he would certainly invested that day prohibited from mosting likely to the toilet. When he ultimately saw Logan at the George Shrub Intercontinental Flight Terminal, he was shivering, though his head was held high. She resisted rips as the ICE representatives viewed them till they boarded. He had the bag, yet it had actually been zip-tied closed; for the 30 hours to Madrid, he put on those pants.
Throughout the trip, they clutched each various other’s hands. Logan ultimately overlook a couple of rips, of delight and craze alike.
Logan calls her partner “a detainee of the anti-immigrant battle.” Still, she has hope. “We’re mosting likely to conquer,” she claimed in a later video clip phone call from Madrid, resting beside Menjivar in a resort bed. “We’re mosting likely to increase over this.”
