Day 1 in Detention

It's your first day here, and the other people with you inside what feels like a cage look just as hungry, tired, and terrified as you feel. It's a sea of orange jumpsuits; what little that you had left on you had been taken when you arrived. Your clothes, your phone, your wallet, your shoe laces, even the four printed photos of your children whose faces were seared into your mind.

One of the men wearing the same uniform as the man who brought you here announces that everyone will go through something called "intake" today. They will assign you to a room and talk you through your daily schedule.

The rest of the day is a whirl of information. They tell you that you will be held in this detention facility indefinitely until your case is processed. They tell you that you have the right to work at the facility for $1/day. They tell you that you have a designated 20 minutes/day during which you can use the phone, which costs 10 cents/minute. You will have 1hr/day of outside time. They give you hand out after hand out of information.

Then, they assign you to a room with another three men. It is a three walled, windowless cell with a chain-link metal door. There are two sets of bunk beds, about a foot apart, with a toilet in between. Immediately, you realize privacy was a priviledge you had taken for granted.