Buried Alive

by Lisa Tozzi

Attorney D'Ann Johnson and Cuban detainee Luis Terry photograph by Alan Pogue

A 62-year-old man witha laundry list of ailments, Juan Herrera looks like a slowly deflating tire. Every breath seems to be a struggle, as though he were submerged in a tank of water, gulping for air. He anxiously wrings his hands as he talks, drawing attention to his fingernails: thick, yellowed, and clubbed. His swollen, discolored toes poke out from orange rubber shower slippers. His abdomen is grossly distended from a hernia. He hikes up his fading red sweatshirt to show you: "Mi duele," he says, pointing to his swollen belly. "Mi duele mucho. Siempre." It hurts. Always. Herrera's eyelids hang heavy over bulging black eyes. His memory is being chipped away by what may be the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. His teeth and tongue seem ill-fitted for his mouth, loose, uncomfortable, uneven. Occasionally the rattling teeth and oversized tongue make him difficult to understand.

But even as his brain and body deteriorate before your eyes, Herrera is clear about one thing: He has release papers from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, papers that should be his passport to freedom, but instead just add to his frustration. His attorney, D'Ann Johnson, says after two years in the Bastrop County Jail, the INS granted Herrera a release due to his failing health. Too expensive for the government to continue to keep now, she surmises. But eight months later, Herrera sits in his cell, staring at the release papers and wondering why he is still stuck in Bastrop.

Herrera is an indefinite detainee, one of 2,800 men and women in jails and prisons throughout the nation (see p.18). Like Herrera, many are Cuban, unable to be released or deported because the United States has no diplomatic relations with their country. They're called "non-deportables" or "lifers" in some INS documents, though INS — realizing that the terms are bad for public relations — now prefers another name for the prisoners. "We'd prefer it if you'd call them long-term detainees," says an INS official in Washington, D.C.

Long-termers. It's a euphemistic word, implying some end to the nightmare. But to these men in Bastrop, and others like them scattered throughout the nation, long-term feels like forever. And for some, it very well could be.

Many of these "long-term" prisoners have served time for other crimes, some of them violent offenses. But after completing their criminal sentences, women and men like Herrera are incarcerated again without any explanation or any release date — a clear violation of international human rights standards, which outlaw arbitrary or indefinite incarceration.

"Tell them to let me go," Herrera urges you. Slowly his weariness gives way to sadness and anger. "Tell them I have papers that say let me go. Digale. When can I be free?" Worse than his health problems is the confusion, the frustration of being trapped in the system and not being able to get out. It affects his mind, eats away at him. "I have my liberty. I have the paper. I want to be free," he says over and over.

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The "Freedom Flotilla"

photograph by Robert Bryce

"Soy Marielito," Herrera says, referring to his departure in 1980, when Fidel Castro allowed 125,000 Cubans to immigrate to the U.S. from the Port of Mariel. About 300 of the refugees were mental patients, another 350 were released from Cuban jails — a fact that has stigmatized the thousands of others who embarked on the infamous "Freedom Flotilla" 18 years ago, with the trust that U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the United States would welcome them.

Herrera says he worked in a ship yard in the Cuban Province of Matanzas. Upon his arrival in the States, he went to Chicago, where he worked in a factory making electrical auto parts. But his dreams of freedom ended about a year after his arrival, when he killed a woman. "There was a death in my house," he begins. "The police said I did it." It was a friend. A woman. A prostitute. He doesn't recall her name. "Yes," he admits finally, his head slightly lowered. "I killed her."

When pressed about the details, Herrera says he doesn't remember. Perhaps, you suppose, it's the Alzheimer's clouding his memory; maybe it's that Herrera has spent 17 years trying to forget that night. In a way he has succeeded. He talks about the incident as if it were a movie, viewed long ago. He can only vaguely recall the plot: She stole $1,500 from him, and he flew into a rage. He won't say how he murdered her. A gun? A knife? His hands? "No recuerdo," he mumbles. His forgetfulness seems at once implausible and completely logical. This is the only way he can cope, the only way "to stop the suffering," he explains. He has blocked out the heinous details.

Herrera was sentenced to 15 years in an Illinois prison. His time there was difficult, but, he says, more bearable than his two years in Bastrop. He was younger then — healthier, too. But more importantly, Herrera knew why he was incarcerated; he was paying for his unthinkable crime. Even though he was considered a violent criminal in Illinois, he says, conditions were better than in Bastrop. He received regular medical attention; dental care for his rotting teeth. It was a nurse in Illinois who first noticed his failing eyesight and discovered his diabetes. Herrera doubts that would happen in Bastrop, where doctors' visits are infrequent. In Illinois, he worked in the library, reading books in Spanish to help him pass the lonely days. But in Bastrop there are no Spanish-language books or magazines. He watches TV and sleeps all day.

Herrera's tortured scowl melts into bittersweet laughter when he is asked if he has ever been allowed outside in Bastrop. You are asking him about the jail's yard, where prisoners are supposed to go three times a week for recreation; some of the Cuban detainees say they have not been outside since being transferred to Bastrop. But when you ask about "going outside," Herrera thinks you mean as in walking down the street. "Oh, no. Only in the yard," he says, chuckling at your naïveté, that you might actually have the notion he is allowed to roam free. Then he laughs again at the misunderstanding.

But his smile is fleeting: When asked about returning to Cuba, he simply says "no," and shakes his head adamantly. He is afraid to return to Cuba. But he is also terrified of dying in jail. Are these his only choices? he wonders. Can't he leave jail, make a new life, spend his old age "doing nothing"? Herrera believes if he were on the outside he could recuperate. He wants to get healthy. He wants to sleep in a room without the clanging jail doors shaking him awake. He is willing to go anywhere — except Chicago where this nightmare all began — he says. At 62 years of age, he wants a chance to begin again. "I act perfectly well now," he says. "I am not a threat to anyone. I am not that kind of man."

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A True Friend

photograph by Robert Bryce

Herrera knows only a few crumbs of English. One of those words is "friend." It's a word Bernardo Espinoza taught him.

"Ah, Bernardo Espinoza," Herrera says, the sadness softening again. "He is a good man. I have nothing. I have no one. He gives me everything."

Benny Espinoza cares for Herrera when he is sick, saves him food, talks to him when he is lonely. That's the way Espinoza is, says attorney D'AnnJohnson (see box below). Espinoza once gave another prisoner his shoes off his feet. The prisoner was being released that day, and had no shoes to tread into the outside world in. Espinoza didn't want him to have to walk outside barefoot.

Espinoza wants to help others. When he's thinking about the others, he has less time to spend inside his head, worrying, obsessing about the quagmire of his present, about the pain and violence of his past. He is unable to wrap his brain around it all. But despite attempts to shut it out, the worry rushes in. "Being stuck in here is like being buried alive," he says. He worries about his children in Milwaukee, about the other Cubans in Bastrop. Today he is especially worried about Juan Herrera. "The old man, he has no one," he says. Espinoza wants to get Herrera out of Bastrop Jail, to find someone to care for him, a halfway house, a nursing home, anywhere but jail. This is no way for a man to spend his old age. All the anxiety has started to take a toll on Espinoza. His stomach churns and aches.

Benny Espinoza, 41, is a grizzly bear of a man, with wavy black hair that drapes down past his thick neck and brushes his shoulders. His round face is partially hidden by a thick, drooping mustache. Though Espinoza is quite eloquent about the plight of the Bastrop Cubans, the story of his arrest seven years ago is stark and fuzzy with regret. It begins like too many other inmates' stories: Espinoza had a drinking problem. Occasionally the drunkenness erupted into violence. According to his case file, in 1995 Espinoza was arrested for hitting his son. He claimed he spanked the boy, disciplined him. A neighbor called the police and reported the incident. Too embarrassed to go to court, and wanting to spare his family further shame, Espinoza pled guilty to the charge. But Espinoza says now that he did not abuse his son. "I would never hit my son. My father never hit me. I would never hit my boy."

Whether he is guilty or not, Espinoza believes he has served his court-mandated sentence, and used the time to rehabilitate himself, enrolling in AA and anger management classes. His case file contains recommendations from corrections officers calling him "a model prisoner." Now, he wants to be free, to prove himself beyond prison walls. But Espinoza says he has seen enough of America. He is no longer able to believe the States has more to offer than punishment and prison. If it means he can be free, he will return to Cuba willingly.

"If they told me sign a paper right now to go back to Cuba, I will sign it right now. Send me right now to Cuba," Espinoza grins. "If I can return to my country, God bless me. I'd prefer to jump in the ocean and let sharks eat me, because where's my future here?"

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Miranda's Rights

photograph by Robert Bryce

Carlos Lazaro Miranda still believes in a future in the United States, though his dreams have been stunted during two years in jail, first in El Paso, now in Bastrop. With his closely cropped hair, enormous eyes, and small frame, Miranda looks younger than his 29 years. His demeanor belies the pain of the past two years. He seems to slough off the frustration, somehow retaining a glow of optimism. Like Herrera's memory loss and Espinoza's immersion in the problems of others, the good humor is Miranda's defense against the horror of being locked away indefinitely. Recommendation letters from Bastrop corrections officers all point to Miranda's good attitude, his eagerness to work, his friendliness. (Strangely, prisoners say Bastrop Corrections Officers were recently told they can no longer write recommendations for INS prisoners. When asked about the new policy, Jail Administrator Charlie Littleton said the prisoners are wrong and that corrections officers can indeed write recommendations.)

In 1994, the slight 29-year-old left his parents, his sister and brother, and his job as a decorator in a hotel, and set off for the states from Havana, taking turns rowing through rough waters in a tiny boat crowded with five other men. The six-day journey was terrifying, though Miranda typically downplays the adventure. When asked about the trip, he makes a rowing motion, shrugs, and smiles weakly as if to say, "It was nothing."

After landing in Key West, Fla., Miranda moved to Albuquerque, N.M., where he started to build a reputation as a hard worker. He drove a truck for Leeco Grounds Managment, a landscaping business. In the off-season he worked at Mission Uniform Laundry and in a local restaurant. "The laundry still owes me two paychecks," he says with a laugh.

But it wasn't long before youthful foolishness and aching loneliness landed Miranda in trouble. He fell in with bad influences, and was arrested with two other men, caught with 10 rocks of crack cocaine. But Miranda was given a break: He wasn't going to jail. His conviction netted him a sentence of five years probation. Miranda resolved to work, seek counseling, and take English classes. He wanted to stay out of trouble.

But six days after his conviction, while he was working at the laundry, Miranda was picked up by the INS and sent to its El Paso detention center. Miranda says he doesn't know why he was suddenly arrested, but the incident occurred shortly after the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which calls for the deportation of any non-citizen convicted of a felony, regardless of when the crime was committed or any other mitigating circumstances. Miranda's file states that his arrest was part of "The Cuban Project," though INS officials asked to define the task force's duties claimed to be unfamiliar with the term.

At first, INS officials said they were deporting him, but Miranda says he fears repercussions if he returns to Cuba. After all, it was a crime for him to leave. "The system is bad," he says, showing a brief glimpse of the darkness he normally doesn't allow to bubble to the surface. "I can't live my life in Cuba."

Carlos Miranda knows more English then he lets on. He takes English as a Second Language and GED classes in Bastrop. He seems to understand your questions before they are translated in Spanish, but he is shy about using this foreign tongue. That suspicion is confirmed later by Miranda's case file. In it are letters, written in painstakingly neat penmanship. You can almost picture him sitting in his cell, thoughtfully crafting every word. Some of these letters are in English, one thanking Johnson for her help. Others are to INS officials asking them to set him free. Miranda wants to return to Albuquerque where his friends and his sponsor are. He wants to try to rebuild the life interrupted two years ago. This is no place for a young man.

"I am not a criminal, I am an ex-criminal," says Miranda. "I have been here enough time. I have repented for what I have done, but I haven't been given the opportunity to be free. I just want to be free."