Habeas Corpeus

 Habeas Corpeus

Homecoming: Redux

habeas corpus (Latin)“you shall have the body.”
A legal writ demanding that a detained person be brought before a court to determine whether their imprisonment is lawful.

In practice, it means one thing: prove they’re still alive.

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The moment I saw had seen her message come through - that the Red Cross had to sadly tell this woman for the fourth time in 3 weeks that her son was not there, I felt an exhaustion so powerful I could barely keep my eyes open.

Again. There was no explanation, no reason, no apology from anyone - aside from the only people who had no fault.

Just absence and silence. I sent a quick note to Anna and returned to the group chat - thinking at first to offer comfort, before realizing that not only would it be pointless, I had none to offer, and realized I also needed some - I knew what was coming and as I saw her hostile messages come in, I made the decision to simply close whatsapp, and then turned of my phone. After venting, she would turn it into blame - either for me or for Anna, she'd feel terrible about it the next day, but I just needed peace. 

I sat there with my phone facedown, the darkness of the room swallowing me, the quiet too thick to move through. I think I must have stayed like that for a long time, long enough for the adrenaline to finally wear off and for the fear and  frustration pass. I put on a funny series on my laptop and fell asleep. 

I dreamt of him- I was surprised that it was the first and only time I had - it was a bizarre alien landscape that I somehow knew was Louisiana and largely comically disproportionate airplanes waiting in the distance. He was trying to cross a bridge to one but it kept falling apart. I was expecting him to be upset, to rage, to wail at the unwariness of it - but in my dream, it was like his person. Surprisingly calm and non-chalant with unexpected life events and difficulties. I apologized to him and said we didnt know what happened and he shrugged and said "and you still don't, but there is nothing you can do" and I woke up, knowing the news was going to be very bad. 

When I woke up, I checked the locator first. The page that had been my morning ritual, my midnight activity, my stupid little window into bureaucratic purgatory, but made one thing clear "he is alive and accounted for" - figuring he was kicked from a flight again and would either be in another waiting cycle in Alexandria, or returned to Pine Prairie, I waited to see the "In Custody - Transfer" page I had gotten so accustomed to. It was instead the best and worst possible response: "There is no information with the data supplied - please enter again or for more information on missing migrants, check this link" 

I re-entered the information twice, both times - same result. My stomach got cold - this is what had happened when he was moved to Alligator Alcatraz, this is also what happened when people were rerouted to other hellish places, like the Venezuelans to El Salvador or the gentlemen sent to Uganda. 

I called Anna immediately, and before I could even finish explaining, she sighed in that way that meant she already knew. His mother had called her eight times that day, she said. She’d answered two of them. Same questions. Same pleas. Same silence. There was no news, no update, no location. Nothing.

We both sat in that emptiness for a while before she said it, that phrase that sounded almost mythical, something out of an old legal textbook rather than a lifeline: “We can file a writ of habeas corpus.” I asked her what that meant, and she said it quietly, like she was afraid to let it echo: “It means we make them prove he’s alive.”

The government would have twenty-four hours to produce a body. That’s how she phrased it - “produce a body.” Not a man, not a detainee, not Enrique. A body. And there was a kind of sick poetry in that, wasn’t there? Months of fighting for a name, a face, a message, and now the final hope was to make them show us a body, just so we could breathe again.

But it was expensive, she warned. Not her part - she said she’d waive what she could. but the filing itself. Thousands of dollars just to beg for proof that someone hadn’t been erased. I told her I’d think about it, though there wasn’t really anything to think about. I just didn’t want to say it out loud yet. Because saying it meant admitting that he might be gone.

For the rest of the morning, I moved through my house like a ghost, doing small, mechanical tasks to fill the space between panic and paralysis. Around noon, Anna called me - explaining she wanted to talk as her daughters were busy playing a soccer game, and we went over the possible scenarios: What was likely, what wasnt likely, what could it be. We both agreed Occams Razor was that he was bumped from a flight again - but we both also acknowledged the removal from the detainee list made us both think it wasn't that.

What could it be? The most likely ones - Flight delays, paperwork errors, mislogged transfers but none of it made sense with his removal from website. The Black Hole had been the last verified stop. After that, nothing. She said she’d email the embassy again and see if they’d received any arrival reports and I asked if I should push fate one last time on the director. It felt like tempting fate. The man had already done us a favor once, and I knew from the way Anna said it—“one time only”—that reaching out again could risk everything. But at this point, what was left to lose? - As was our custom we started with the most absurd negative thing that could happen - maybe his email was caught and reviewed and he had been punished for sharing info like that and as a result, they were taking out on Enrique - and then we both agreed that was so incredibly stupid. 

So I drafted the email, careful to sound polite, neutral, detached. Just seeking clarity, not confrontation. “We had understood that Enrique was scheduled for deportation this weekend,” I wrote. “His name was confirmed on both manifests. We were told the flight arrived as planned, but he was not among the arrivals. Could you please confirm whether he remains in custody?” I stared at it for twenty minutes before pressing send.

Then I waited.

Hours passed. Nothing. I forced myself to not engage further with the websites or research if there were any last minute plane accidents. I was able to get some work done. Anna called me at 5:30 with what a Habeas Corpeus would look like in practice and to check to see if there were any other updates. She mentioned Enriques Mom had called again but she didnt want to answer and wondered if something had happened. While we talked I open the group chat and saw notifications that it was buzzing - already knew it would be another wave of despair, more blame, more chaos. But I opened it anyway.

It was his mom, calm as you please, just casually announcing that he was "outside" - thanks to God. Followed by a few emojis. 

I thought she’d finally lost her mind. I really did. Not from cruelty - just a defense mechanism. After everything we had experienced there was no way this was true. I just stared at the message and asked i I was understanding correctly- Jorge questioned it too.

I called her and when she answered, I could hear that strange combination of hysteria and relief that only comes after a long trauma.

She kept saying it over and over: “He’s home, he’s home, he’s home.” I tried to ask questions, but she was crying too hard to answer clearly. I asked when, how, with who, and she said she didn’t know much - just that he’d called her from a borrowed phone, said he was safe, said he’d been processed yesterday and that he would be calling me on the hour.

I remember feeling so badly for her - as one of the memories from when he had first gone into ICE custody and after several days of silence, had finally called but was insisting to both of us that he had been flown to Cali and was completely fine. I understand it was based out powerlessness and the poor treatment and I myself was already suspicious, but his Mom believed him at face value and began thanking God before he pulled the plug on it and reminded her he was in hell and would be staying there.

Something terrible had happened - and he was trying to manage it - wasn't he. Or maybe, just maybe? 

And while she was talking, my phone lit up with a new call. An unfamiliar Colombian number. For a second I didn’t move - could it be? 

I answered. The voice was faint at first - he was talking to someone else quickly - after I said hello two more times. It came through like a burst of sounds "DANIEL! HOLIIIIIIII SOY ENRIQUE! EN BOGOTAAAAA!" 

It was him.

For a second, I couldn’t even breathe. My first thought was that it was another trick, some new layer of bureaucratic cruelty. But the voice - it was his. A little rough, but still Enrique. I refused to believe he was in Bogota, remembering that one "prank" from his first week, but maybe....?

I asked him to send me pictures, videos something that I could confirm he was in Bogota - and he started laughing and telling me he was not going to do that right this minute as it was his friends phone, and I immediately challenged that, asking what friend and how could he have met up with a friend so fast if he didnt have anything and he said Alejandro, and then I rememebered he was part of this friendship circle, his last name came right to the forefront and I checked the contact info and it said it - I had this person already saved in my phone. Unless Alejandro had flown to whatever hell they had taken Enriquye and asked to be let in with a cell phone to pull this prank, he was telling the truth. He was in Bogota. 

I asked millions of questions at the same time - trying to both get the whole story and tell him what had been happening at the same time. I texted Anna quickly and said Id call her after.  He explained that this week he was brought to Alexandria again and told he was leaving and that two weeks earlier he had been brought to the tarmac and put on line but was taken off last minute with 9 other detainees from overcrowding - that is when he was sent to Pine Prairie. He was exasperated and thought hed have to wait another month, but at least knew he was at the last stage - but when they came a few days earlier, he was confident it was real, until he was piulled off the line a second time. This time with only 1 other guy - as he was cheerfully explaining what happened,, I realized he began to channel the emotion as while laughing he said how much he he cried in front of everyone and didn't care, even collapsing to his knees and just saying he was going to be here forever, why not just kill him, how many times would he be told "ok its done" and its never done. 

He shared his surprise that not only did several other detainees move to comfort him, but so did 2 guards who took him to small room and offered him some snacks and tissues and gave him some space to process it by himself. He was not sent back to Pine Prairie and had to sleep in the very overcrowded final staging area on a cold floor and early afternoon, he and 3 other men were brought to another side where a plane was waiting. hey were loaded onto a commercial airline from Brazil, but they stopped in Mexico City and Bogota first - he had landed in the very early afternoon. Long before we even began to hope and plan for his arrival that night. 

He’d walked out of the airport holding a Red Cross voucher.He wondered if we had been told about his arrival  and looked around some of the waiting areas, but knowing first hand at how bad the information was -  figured we didn't and struck out on his own. 

He didnt have a phone or money, but was given several taxi and food vouchers from the Red Cross - he debated going to one of his ex boyfriends house, one of his friends house or a place he used to work - not knowing if that was their place anymore or if they were even home -and took a chance on the second one. Luckily Alejandro was home and let him in, not realizing anything that had happened and offered him food, clothes, a hot shower and then peace. He offered Enrique his personal bed and took the couch  - he had slept for almost 17 hours. 

I asked him if he was okay, and he said he was tired but fine. He laughed a little when he said it, like he knew how absurd that sounded. I could hear the background noise of Bogotá through the line -car horns, dogs, a distant motorcycle - and it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

We wired him money for a phone, some food, a haircut. His mom sent photos of him later that day, clean-shaven, eyes hollow but alive. Jorge messaged that it felt so good - but a little anticlimactic 

And I just sat there, staring at the screen. The relief felt like relief - but almost also like a collapse.

The group chat that had been constant for months - buzzing, pleading, praying - went silent. Nobody knew what to say now that it was over. His mom wrote a few more messages that night, mostly gratitude, a few pictures of candles and saints. Jorge said he’d go back to work tomorrow. I hearted them and said I couldn't believe we finally got here. The next morning 4 people, including his Mom, had left the chat. 

For the first time since March, the night he left my house to strike his own luck and venture for Miami, I saw his face. He face-timed me that night and we spoke for almost a half-hour. And while I was relieved to talk to him, to see him safe and happy - I also ....wanted to hang up and that made me feel even worse somehow. I eventually found a natural spot and said I needed to work but we'd check in later.  He texted me a few more times and called me a few mores times, I could tell surprised and a little hurt at how I abruptly left and wasnt answering - he asked if I was mad, and that wasnt it at all, I just ...didn't want to talk to him. 

I wondered about it and tried to understand this as it made o sense - part of me couldn’t stop thinking about the phrase that had started it all, the one Anna had explained so carefully: habeas corpus "you shall have the body" - And we did.

But as I sat there in the silence of that night, phone turned off again. I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what this was. If this was the moment we’d finally gotten what we asked for, the proof of life, the confirmation of existence, the return of the body. But if that was true, if this was the end, then why did it feel bad? 


 

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