How Getting Deported is Like Taking a Trip to Disneyland

Had immigration court this morning. Time for Miguel Hakim de la Santisima Trinidad to narrate another episode of Law and Order: La Raza. *Puts on law hat*

Case today centered on a Mexican asylum case. Asylum cases, particularly Mexican asylum cases, are tricky. First, it's hard for people to get asylum if they come from countries that the U.S. likes, because basically, the granting of asylum is tacit acknowledgment that a country a). is a jerk or b). can't get it's shit together. Think about it: how awkward would it be at the UN Christmas party if the U.S. told Canada, "by the way, we know about the guy whose balls you strapped to a car battery. We let him stay with us because you're mean." Awwwwkwaaaaard...

Mexico is one of the countries we actually like, contrary to what Glenn Beck says. They gives us tequila and tacos and a steady supply of illegal workers. They also buy a lot of crap from us. If you don't believe me, go to Cielo Vista Mall on a Wednesday and count the number of young guys you see wearing Hollister shirts and pointy shoes. So we can't really state the obvious -- that Mexico is mired in corruption and that parts of the country are blood-laved war zones -- because that would be awkward Oh my GAWD. Plus, we also get into issues of who is a legit asylee or not. Most of the time, these cases involve the cartels or else the police being assholes and killing your family. And yes, the police can be assholes who kill your family, but unless they kill your family because you're a Democrat, a Buddhist, a homosexual, ethnically Armenian, or ideally all those things, you do not qualify to come here under law. If they kill you just because they "don't like you" because you renegged on your drug deal, that's not asylum. That just sucks for you.

Anyways, the immigration lawyers in El Paso take on these almost impossible asylum cases because they believe in opening the floodgates to mass immigration, crashing the U.S. welfare state, and reclaiming Aztlan for the angry Serpent-God Quetzalcoatl helping people. The proceedings are interesting, at least to nerds like me. Basically, the attorneys for both the government and the immigrant bicker like children on a road trip, and the grandfatherly judge just rolls his eyes and sighs. You really feel for the guy. There were times I thought he would say "if you two don't shut up, I'm turning this courtroom around and we're not going to Disneyland!" (I wanted to compliment His Honor on having a great, Christmas-y Grinch tie, but I imagine that law slaves interns are discouraged from engaging in banter with the Bench.)

Witnesses ramble. The interpreter translates incomprehensible legalese from English to Spanish. You freeze your ass off in the conference room they dressed up to look like a courtroom. The asylum lawyer brings in a expert witness who vaguely reminds you of Velma from Scooby Doo. And eventually, everyone ends up leaving angry, hurt, and, confused, like a teenager who got rejected as a prom date.

So what's my opinion on Mexican asylum cases? Eh. Doesn't really matter, anyways, I'm not a judge or a lawyer.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm going to law school. Then I realize it's because I have nothing of value to contribute to society. Must...finish...applications...

Peccados Deportados con El Señor Miguel

In the immigrant justice system, indigent clients are represented by two groups of people: the non-profit attorneys who argue the cases for peanuts and the interns who try to prove that somehow, some way, the firm's clients are being chased by El Chapo. These are their stories.

*METAL CLANGING SOUND*

So since graduating from college in May, I've been waiting out the economic crapstorm by volunteering to advance La Causa. My mission: trying to keep people from being deported to Mexico, a.k.a. 300 feet *that* way. I'm going on my fifth month at the center now. I got a T-shirt y todo, and if I roll up the sleeves I can show off my slowly growing but still pathetic arms. 'Sta bien chida.

Most people would find the ins-and-outs of immigration law to be boring. But me, I like to think of my volunteer work like it's all part of some primetime novela. Think Law and Order: La Raza. Granted, we don't get to carry guns or have intense dialogues, but some of the shit we pull would make Jack McCoy himself say WTF?

In the 400-plus volunteer hours I’ve logged as Kirk the Law Slave hotshot legal assistant Miguel Hakim de la Santisima Trinidad, I have done the following things:

• Compiled a 300-page cancellation of removal case that hinged on menopause being considered an “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship." The judge didn’t bite, but he did admit it was a valiant effort after he ordered my client deported. (As an aside, I hope I NEVER have to hear the phrase “submucosal fibroid” EVER again. *Shudder*)
• Worked on an appeal involving a Somali guy who is not a pirate.
• Wrote bitchy motions to the Department of Homeland Security arguing that embezzlement – if it WAS indeed committed *scoff* – isn’t REALLY a crime of moral turpitude.
• Talked my way out of going to a client's house at a nun's behest when she explained that there might be a slight possibilty that her jealous boyfriend might stab me. Yeah. Nuns work at our office
  
• Caught myself using scare quotes when referring to things like “good moral character” and “national security exceptions under FOIA law”
• Translated Arabic documents containing phrases such as “in the service of building our Eritrean homeland,” “trusteeship of our departed martyrs,” and “victory to the masses!”
• Sat in and listened to various people claim that the Juarez Cartel/La Familia/La Linea/Colombian coke lords/the Mexican military/the Mexican police/the FBI/Santa Claus are out to get them and they need asylum
  
• Learned how to use phrases like "esteeee" and "oye, dame la account number, yeah?"

All in all, this is just another one of those things on my resume that means I will never be able to run for President or get a government security clearance. Lord knows that working there, chances are I've met someone knows a guy who knows a guy who shoved another guy into an oil drum full of diesel fuel and set him in on fire because he owed Vicente Carillo Fuentes a Snickers bar.

And in spite of all that -- I kind of like it. Sure, my family is probably sick of hearing about "the system" and I should talk about other things. But the fact is that the gym isn't exactly a hotbed of activity, the gossip well from Alma Mater has run dry, and any and all crazy nights out are protected as privileged information under the Bro Code. Plus I'm at that age where I have to start watching what I say and being "respectable" and "discreet" and whatnot. As a result, Kirk's tawdry stories will go untold online, but Miguel Hakim will keep on fighting the good fight.

So yeah. In conclusion, que viva la raza!

(EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: DICK WOLF)

Afkaari

Some disembodied meditations before I hit the sack:

* It really doesn't take a lot for me to get going on some radical, sanctimonious, quasi-socialist rant. And that scares me, because I'm supposed to be a cynical, unfeeling hipster. I mean, for God's sake, I have a goatee. If I'm NOT cynical, that that just means I'm a few darbouka lessons away from being an unwashed, barefoot hippie. And I hate hippies!

* ...okay. I secretly want to learn to play darbouka.

*With douchy inflection* The rhythms and I sojurn through the thirsty desert.
*Drum sounds* FLAK-A-WAH!

*My main tactic in arguments involves making people feel completely ashamed of what they actually believe in. As I explained to my brother Nick, "when people get up on stage and start doing their monkey dance, get up in the audience and do the monkey dance, too. When they see how ridiculous it looks, they'll sit down out of shame."

* I hate it when you talk to people with messed up lives who spout off complete bullshit and then suddenly drop unsettling nuggets of Truth (capital T). And when you put all those unsettling Truth-nuggets together in Oujia board formation, it spells out: GET A GIRLFRIEND. OR AT LEAST SOME SORT OF SIGNIFICANT OTHER FIGURE.

* To the cholos/drug dealers down the street who choose to repeatedly drive past our house at midnight on weeknights -- SHUT THE FUCK UP! And buy a damn muffler. Your "pimp" ride sounds like a Vespa with swine flu.

Heh

This bird needs to be the mascot of the social justice movement in El Paso.



Oh yeah, and Happy Halloween to the two people who read this.