Click here to read chapter three.

There are about 20 or 25 of us again on our way out of Glades, and we have to get our clothes, money and property. They’re done by 3 a.m., and now they cuff us up again from head to toe and we jump on the bus.

I’m sitting next to my buddies Alessandro and Juancho (alias “Gasparin”). Alessandro is from Brazil. He’s a very nice and funny guy with a great heart. I’ve known him since B.T.C. This man is married and waiting for his papers, but Judge Ford doesn’t want to give him bond either because he had a DUI like five or six years ago. He’s been locked up for four months now.

And Juancho (Gasparin) is also a very happy, funny fucking guy, a very generous person. But I gave him a couple of extra gray hairs because I used to pick on him a lot. He’s fighting for asylum and has also been with us for about four months.

He and I were singing some old vallenato songs from Escalona, El Binomio de Oro, a little Carlos Vives and Diomedes Díaz to pass some time. Damn, those songs are awesome!

And we finally got there. Oh, oh. We are in KROME. Yes sir, I am now officially going to be a detainee in KROME.

# # #

So it’s 5 a.m., and they finally take our cuffs off and we wait to be processed. Since we’ve been locked up for some months now, we’ve started to think and act like inmates. I’m not gonna tell you what we did for 22 hours in a fucking depressing, cold-ass cell because it’s not that damn interesting. But know that we played coin games against a corner wall. We also picked on and made fun of all the guards who were there pretending to do some work, not really doing a thing while we were there.

They fed us three sandwiches during the whole 22 hours we spent there, with chips and water out of a dirty-ass sink.

So we got to KROME at 5 a.m. on February 7, and they put us in our pod, 14 Bravo, at 3 a.m. on February 8.

We went to sleep for two hours and woke up at 5:30 a.m. to what we would hear for the next three and a half months: “UP, UP, UP, UP, UP, UP, UP! GOTTA GET UP! GOTTA GET UP!”

So we got up, made the line and walked outside the building toward the diner. This is kind of what boot camp would look like. They told me it was a military camp before it became an immigration facility. So we got some breakfast.

It looked fucking great after three sandwiches and chips. We ate all of it and whatever people left behind. They give you 10 minutes to eat, and then you have to get back to the pod, but of course not without being searched by officers in case you decide to take some food back.

On your way in, you get to see some cool little family of raccoons. They look like they all went out as a family on a Sunday morning to the zoo to see some strange and rare species of illegal immigrants. It’s very ironic to see that, as cool as it was!

Back in the pod, all you have is a ping-pong table and a TV. Cards and dominoes are here and there if you buy them. A radio that costs about 20 bucks out on the street costs 40 bucks here.

I fortunately got there with my buddies Gasparin and Alessandro. The rest of the guys landed in different pods. I spent the next week or so with them until one day they got Alessandro and took him back to Glades again. So now it’s Gasparin and me.

We met Harold, another Colombian who wrote a bunch of letters for other people so they could show them to the judge. He helped about six people, and they all got out on bond. But his case was a lot more complicated than that, and those letters didn’t work for him. He got deported some weeks after we met him.

We met a new Colombian guy who got there because he left on a cruise to Mexico, and when he got back they arrested him for supposedly trying to sneak into the country again. This guy had been a resident for a little less than 10 years. These immigration assholes are busting everyone’s balls for no fucking reason as they spend billions of dollars in the process. His name is Lucho. He’s been here for almost one week, and he’s already going crazy. Maybe we shouldn’t tell him how long we’ve been here! He he.

We also met a very fucking cool Venezuelan dude called Virgilio (alias “El Bichito”). We all hung out, played cards and chilled.

We also met some cool Mexican singer we called “Negrete,” who sang all the time and kept us well entertained. Great guy.

# # #

One time Negrete got into an argument with a Jamaican guy who happened to be an asshole. When Negrete was walking away, Jamaica kicked him in the back. So Negrete turned around and punched him twice, but I stopped him. When the officers showed up, the African American asshole officer took the Jamaican’s side and sent our Negrete to the other pod, Pod 11, with a Salvatrucha who opened his dumb mouth and called the officer a nigger.

So Jamaica thought he could keep on being a prick because he had another buddy, a Haitian guy who we’ll call “Fuck Face.”

We for sure did not own that pod, but these dumbasses really thought they could come and run shit. One day they tried Virgilio (El Bichito), and El Bichito didn’t hesitate to tell him, “What’s up? You got a fucking problem? Let’s go to the bathroom and talk.” The bathroom is the only place here with no cameras. But they got scared because we heard what was going on and came over. Now there were three of us and two of them, and that was that.

But another time I was in the bathroom, and both them fucks came at me when I was on my own. So “Fuck Face” came at me first. I rushed him back toward the toilets, and he fell backward. I fell on top of him and punched him while he was trying to get up, as his buddy was punching my back and head. But by this time my friends heard the mess and came into the bathroom and threw them both to the floor. Right before we got to see a little unfortunate blood, the officers got there. They all knew those two were a pain in the ass, so they got sent to Pod 11. He he he.

And guess what? As soon as they walked in, Negrete spotted Jamaica and followed him to the bathroom and punched him a few times, they all say, until Jamaica said, “Please stop.” Negrete actually felt bad, so he stopped the punches and then said, “You knew you would see me sooner or later, dumbass.” Jamaica never messed with anyone again. As a matter of fact, you couldn’t even hear him around.

# # #

Another month goes by, and Gasparin gets called to go to court. Some hours later, he comes back not looking too happy. He says, “They didn’t want to give me asylum.”

This was a week after Raúl Reyes, second in command of Las FARC, had been put down by the Colombian military in Ecuadorian territory. That was on March 1, so Gasparin had court on the fifth or so. He had also been a victim of kidnapping by Las FARC a couple of years back. He paid his ransom and was set free. Some days after that, he picked up his things, grabbed his family and brought them to the United States of America.

Well, Judge Ford acted like an asshole yet again and said, “I want more evidence to approve his asylum.” He and his lawyer presented newspaper cutouts, threatening letters and pictures that were sent to his home to let him know he was being followed and watched. Gasparin lost his father because of Las FARC. His father left him many farmhouses and land, and Las FARC just took over most of them, which made him come to the United States of America for help.

So the lawyer asked the judge, “Do you actually want to see this man killed before you believe he is in real danger if he goes back to Colombia, so you can give him asylum?”

And the judge, with that “who cares” attitude and those dumbass faces he makes, replied, “If that is what should happen to him, then I can’t help you.”

I can just picture Judge Ford saying that. Poor Gasparin. I can imagine how he must have felt. So I bought us a soda and we cheered together: “To justice and karma, and to the day Judge Ford finds both of those in his trial.”