Carolina Faria Autran De Morais almost missed the start of fall term while being detained by immigration officials.
De Morais wouldn't be buying her textbooks like the rest of her classmates. She wouldn't feel the angst of facing a new term. She wouldn’t be cringing at the thought of term papers. For De Morais missing the first day of classes and consequently being dropped from the class appeared to be her fate.
Being detained for 28 days in a privately contracted Houston, Texas detention center is the last thing most LBCC students would be considering just before the start of a new term.
De Morais arrived at George Bush International Airport in Houston on Aug. 26 at 3:30 a.m. She was detained by immigration officials and notified that she was going to be transported to the Houston Processing Center.
The Houston Processing Center is owned and operated by a private company named Corrections Corporation of America. CCA received national attention this March when an Associated Press article highlighted its deplorable conditions. “The FBI has launched an investigation of the Corrections Corporation of America over the company's running of an Idaho prison with a reputation so violent that inmates dubbed it ‘Gladiator School,’” said an AP article out of Boise, ID.
There, the Linn-Benton Community College student would begin the process of deportation. The reasoning: a misdemeanor that had been resolved seven years earlier by paying a fine in the state of Wisconsin.
Born in 1987 in Brazil, De Morais moved to Ohio when she was 2-years-old while her parents Maria L. E. Faria and Helio de Morais attended Ohio State University in Columbus receiving their PhDs.
After a seven-year return to Brazil, her parents were offered jobs at the University of Wisconsin in Madison when de Morais was 15-years-old. The family became legal residents of the United States, living, working, and paying taxes on work visas.
On Aug. 26 De Morais felt exhausted from traveling the nine hours by jetliner from Porto Alegre, the capital city of the southernmost state of Brazil, to São Paulo, and on to the United States. De Morais thought she was nearing her home in Corvallis. She was wrong.
De Morais’s teenage experience was much the same as millions of American teens. she listened to Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Bach and Jethro Tull.
She made her way through her teenage years, like so many have done before her, she had a run-in with the police at 20-years-old over beer. She was pulled over for a routine traffic stop and the police noticed a case of beer sitting on the back seat that prompted a search of her vehicle. During the search of her vehicle the police discovered a glass marijuana pipe in her car.
Because De Morais didn't have any marijuana she was cited for paraphernalia, the transportation of alcohol, and consumption. In the end, all charges were dropped except for the paraphernalia charge. She was told she had to pay a fine and the charge would not end up on her permanent record. She had a clean slate.
Fast forward to this August when De Morais was detained in Texas by immigration officials on her way home. The last thing she thought could be the problem was the ticket she received in Wisconsin seven years prior.
That ticket cost Lina 28 days of her life, landing her behind bars like a criminal in the privately run prison.
“It was worse than in the movies,” said De Morais, “My shoes were so worn out when I got them they had holes on the bottom and had no traction.”
She wore her socks as gloves at night while she read to keep her fingers from freezing. De Morais was told the temperature was kept that way to keep germs from spreading. All she was given was a thin blanket and standard prison-issue attire.
She found herself embroiled into a community of 60 women of varying nationalities. Some were illegals and some were much like her, legal residents on hold. All were in the same chaos.
De Morais made the best of her time while waiting for her case to be resolved. She helped defuse some of the hostile conditions that resulted from a language barrier between guards and inmates. Fluent in three languages, she helped translate documentation non-English speaking detainees were being told to sign.
Another legal resident, a guidance counselor at a U.S. high school who was captured at the airport, was completely lost in all of the paperwork she was being made to deal with by court officials. De Morais was able to help her get a game plan before her release and is currently still waiting to hear from her.
After being nabbed on Aug. 26, she was inexplicably released on a form of parole the evening of Sept. 24. The prison officials retained all of her legal identification and simply told her to walk out of the prison.
Without a working phone, a single local friend, or any way to help herself, all she had was a piece of paper the prison had given her for identification.
De Morais was able to borrow a cell phone from one of the guards who was sympathetic as she left the facility. She made contact with her mother and began to piece together a strategy to get home.
Her mother had made a reservation at a hotel where De Morais could wait for her father to arrive. Upon arrival at the hotel, the staff would not let her into the room without proper identification.
Jenny Mare, a detainee who was released the same day as De Morais, was able to return and rescue De Morais from being forced to fend for herself on the streets of Houston, keeping her safe until her dad arrived.
She arrived home on Sept. 26 and was able to attend her fall classes.
Although De Morais is now home and settling back into her daily routine, she is not out of the woods.
Her court date will continue to hang like an ominous cloud in the distance for De Morais. It affects her ability to travel out of the country, and effectively kiboshed her plans for nationalization as they are on hold until her legal matters are resolved.
The time frame for this process has been set to take place between one and four years from now by immigration.
Read more in next week’s edition, as we will sit down with Carolina Faria Autran De Morais. She will share her personal experience behind bars.
