Costly Bonds Leave Women Refugees Languishing in Detention

"Ever since thousands of Central Americans sought asylum in Texas last summer, the White House has been trying to stop other families from doing the same.  One of its most controversial tactics is to lock up asylum-seeking women and children in detention facilities and charge such high immigration bonds that they can’t get out.  Eventually, the mothers become desperate, give up their asylum claims and agree to be deported.  The United States has recognized valid asylum claims under international conventions and treaties since World War II.  But the government’s treatment of the families currently detained in Texas defies basic U.S. asylum law, says Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, a San Antonio nonprofit assisting women and children in detention facilities in Karnes City and Dilley in South Texas.  “This is about politics, not about the law,” Ryan says.  “I’ve never seen them apply such high bonds.  It’s not only unusual, it’s extraordinary.”  It’s also inconsistent, says Ryan: “Single men who were taken into detention are given bonds of $1,500 but the women are being given bonds as high as $5,000 up to $15,000.”  Faced with impossibly high bonds, most women have no choice but to remain locked up with their children for several months, waiting for their court date with the asylum judge.  Faced with this grim scenario many accept deportation instead.  RAICES is trying to change that." - Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer, Feb. 17, 2015.