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In this Georgia town, immigration detainees outnumber residents

The detention center is beige and gray, contrasting to the green outskirts of Lumpkin, Georgia, where detained immigrants outnumber residents. These immigrants are caught in a larger system of immigration courts that are facing turmoil and backlash due to crushing caseloads and shifting policies.

Lumpkin is a small town, but the amount of available resources is even smaller. Only two immigration lawyers work in the town full time. There are no hotels for family visiting their loved ones, and most businesses in the town are closed and shuttered.

But the small town has lent a helping hand to the detainees' families. Many have opened their home for relatives to stay in while they are visiting their detained loved ones, while others donate gas cards for the families to travel.

Maria Campos is familiar with this detention center. One of her sons was being held here before being deported back to Mexico last year. Now, her other son is being held here.

Campos doesn't have money to pay for a lawyer for her son, so he is representing himself. The detention center is a seven-hour drive from her home in North Carolina, a trip that she can't often make due to money.

While visiting the town, Campos, her daughter-in-law and two grandchildren stayed at El Refugio, a house run by volunteers who help with food and gas.

Campos said she feels helpless when she visits her son in the detention center, "This place is a horrible place because not all the lawyers want to go there and fight for our family members."

Marty Rosenbluth, one of the two immigration lawyers who live in Lumpkin, understands how important it is to have a lawyer physically present for detainees.

“There's so much that happens in the court that, you know, body language, eye contact, all these other intangibles that you just lose if you were telephonic,” Rosenbluth said. “But most important, I think it makes the biggest difference to the clients themselves."

Rosenbluth took a step further and bought a second home in the town with spare bedrooms to encourage attorneys to attend hearings in person.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, or SIFI, also has stepped in to help. Two staff attorneys work in Lumpkin full time, and volunteer lawyers come for a week at a time.

The organization's phone number is distributed in the Stewart immigration court, and attorney Erin Argueta estimates they get about 100 new calls a month.

It’s difficult for detained immigrants to see or even speak to lawyers who live far away, they have no access to email or fax, and the phones sometimes don’t work or are expensive, Argueta said. Communications are done by mail, which slows the process of collecting documentation, filling out forms in English and getting documents translated and notarized.

“It’s really hard for people at Stewart to carry on day-to-day life, never mind meaningfully prepare their case and gather evidence,” Argueta said.

Visitors to the immigration court pass through two sliding gates set into chain-link fencing topped by loops of razor wire, the first gate closing behind them before the second opens.

"I think that walking into that environment reinforces the desire to give hope to people and get them free to be with their families," said SIFI attorney Matt Boles, who lives full time in Lumpkin.

When detainees are released, it’s often in the evening. If they aren’t fortunate enough to have family waiting for them, they’re driven 30 minutes away to Columbus and left at one of two bus stations.

“There is no set time of release, so it’s difficult to formulate plans,” said Rita Ellis, founding member and chief financial officer of Paz Amigos, a volunteer organization that springs into action when bus station staff notify them that a new group of detainees has arrived.

The organization helps between 40 and 50 men a month, picking them up, feeding them and often putting them up in a hotel or a spare bedroom at a volunteer's homes. Donations of snacks, clothes and backpacks are handed out and phone calls are made to family members to arrange their travel.

“I think it’s a great gap filler to help the men transition from detention to being free, and there’s that scary moment when they’re left in limbo and they’re unsure of where they are and how to get home to their family and friends,” Ellis said. “We provide that service to make sure they get where they’re going safely and with a little kindness.”

Campos, meanwhile, is still waiting for resolution for her son, who has lived in the U.S. since the mid-1990s.

“My first son, my heart was broken because he’s not here," she said. “I don’t want the same for the second one.”

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