With a blue pen, the teenage mother sat down and wrote about life locked up with her 4-year-old son at a Texas family detention center that was “killing me little by little.”
She started:
“I write this letter so you know how it feels to be in this damn place for eight months,” Lilian Oliva Bardales, 19, wrote in Spanish.
The carefully penned note, with small circles for the dots of the i’s, was found in Oliva’s room Wednesday afternoon after the Honduran native was found bleeding from cuts to her wrist in a Karnes County Residential Center bathroom in an apparent suicide attempt, according to her lawyer.
In her two-page letter, she directly confronts the government officials who would possibly find the note. She reasons that they may not be parents and therefore cannot understand the pain of being locked up and “treated worse than an animal.”
McClatchy attained a copy of the note after residents found it and gave it to a lawyer.
The Obama administration’s use of family detention has come under increased public and media scrutiny in recent weeks as allegations of poor conditions have emerged from the facilities that today house more than 760 people, mostly women and children. On Wednesday and Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released five detained pregnant mothers and their children after McClatchy reported on their detainment and pregnancy care.
Detained teen mom writes note before cutting wrist in apparent suicide attempt
Lilian Oliva, 19, was discovered in a family detention center bathroom bleeding from cuts to her wrist. The Obama administration revived the controversial practice of family detention after tens of thousands of mothers and children fled Central America last year.
Oliva's note:
Once an almost abandoned practice, family detention was reintroduced last year as the Department of Homeland Security’s response to the tens of thousands of migrant women and children who fled Central America seeking asylum from violence and persecution. There are currently three family detention centers, two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials contend that the family residential centers are a humane alternative, by keeping families together as they await their immigration hearings or are deported.
Videos of the Karnes City and Dilley, Texas, facilities provided by ICE show kids playing video games and laughing on soccer fields.
Officials confirmed Thursday that a detainee “had a surface-level abrasion” on her wrist, saying it was “a non-life threatening injury.” But advocates said residents reported watching as staff cleaned up her blood.
She is receiving specialized mental health care, officials said.
While stating that the injury was minor, federal officials denied Oliva’s lawyer access to see her Thursday, said another of her attorneys, Javier Maldonado.
“If it’s not a very serious medical issue, there is no reason he shouldn’t see her,” Maldonado said. “In fact, the lawyer should see her to find out what happened and what could be done for her.”
Oliva fled Honduras, where she was the victim of domestic violence from her partner, who is six years older than she is. In her asylum interview, she told federal officials that her brother was killed because he worked for drug traffickers. She said she was also raped by three men, but authorities wouldn’t do anything.
Oliva lost her latest appeal last month. She has been previously deported, so she is considered a flight risk if she were released with a notice to appear for her next court hearing. But her attorney, Maldonado, said there is no reason to continue to hold her and her son. He said she could be given an ankle bracelet or required to report to authorities on a weekly basis. He also said she should qualify for the recently announced policy change that call for reviews of those detained the longest.
“I think this is a time for ICE to consider releasing this family,” he said. “They’re only inflating more pain and misery on them.”
In her letter, Oliva is clearly angry that her appeals have been denied. She’s frustrated over enduring eight months of detention and now expects to be deported.
“I do this because I don’t feel any life going back to my country,” she wrote.