Immigration and Customs Enforcement deports foreign born prisoners to their country of origin. It’s a practice easy to embrace until it happens to someone you know.
Now before anyone’s blood pressure goes up, let me preface this story with a disclaimer. The “why” of it is not an issue. The United States has a vested interest in the removal of criminal aliens from U.S. soil. It’s the “how” of it that I want to tell you about, beginning with a little bit of nuance about the terms.
“Criminal aliens” is what they are called. It’s part of a nomenclature that, like so much of modern American justice, is a one-size-fits-all term used more for political expediency than for any measure of the man, woman, or child involved. The term makes no distinction between the drug dealer looking to put one over on America by enslaving its youth, and the child brought to this country with hope in his eyes only to commit an act of passion or aggression as a teen, pay for it with decades in prison, then pay for it again with deportation to a country barely remembered. That final solution often takes place long after any criminality in the person is extinguished.
American justice appoints judges, then removes from them the ability to judge. The system imposes mandatory sentences and mandatory policies that apply to crimes without much thought about the persons behind them. As a result, no distinction is made between the unrepentant and the repentant, the recidivist and the reformed. Both are cuffed and stuffed onto the same plane after months of a nightmarish journey from one holding cell to another.
This is that story, and I am driven to tell it because I, too, have a vested interest in the state of justice in America. Some of my fellow Americans have put me into this prison for decades on end, and I will never pretend that justice was fulfilled. No, justice was denied, perverted, and flat out discarded. In the twenty-two years during which I have lived in that discarded state called a life sentence, I have seen justice perverted in other ways as well, against other persons, and some of them have been my friends.
I have to believe that this outlet, this gift of God (and the First Amendment) called These Stone Walls with its global outreach exists for a reason beyond just me. Remaining silent wouldn’t just be cowardly. It would be a sin. So hear me out, please, and lay the politics of all this aside for a few moments.
MY FRIEND, AUGIE REYES
I have mentioned my friend, Augie in a few posts on These Stone Walls, most notably in “Science and Faith and the Big Bang Theory of Creation,” and more recently in “The End of Downton Abbey,” posted here on October 21, 2015. Two days after it was posted, Augie was gone.
Like Pornchai Moontri, Augie was a child when he arrived in America. And like Pornchai, he committed an act of desperation as a teenager that ended in tragedy. But like most stories of this kind, the bare naked facts without any context serve the interests of vengeance, but not necessarily justice.
Their stories remind me of a scene in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufresne’s friend, Red – portrayed by the great Morgan Freeman – tells the parole board, “I want to go back there and talk some sense into that kid, tell him how things are, but I can’t. Now I can only live with him.” Movie viewers could readily accept that Red was no longer the troubled youngster who committed that crime all those years ago. It’s because in this wonderful film they come to know him in another capacity beyond his offense.
I have known Augie for twenty-two years in this prison, and when I arrived he had already been here for two years. It is a long time to have a friend in one’s daily field of view only to vanish in the night. But it was much more difficult for Augie who spent twenty-four years here struggling to stay on the high road to which he ascended. Like Pornchai Moontri, Augie is very intelligent. Not cunning, but smart. I mean no insult to other prisoners, but in this setting intelligence without guile stands out beyond any other trait. Augie and Pornchai and I have been friends for a long, long time. This post from here on is written by my friend, Augie, sent to me after the vanishing:
OCTOBER 23, 2015
“It’s early in the morning, and I’m standing at the rail of the upper tier on Bravo pod just like any other day for the last 24 years. But today I’m waiting to hear someone call my name and say “pack up, you’re leaving!” I’m nervous, then my heart jumps when I hear my name. Were you there, G? I can’t remember. Wish I could! The moment is just a blur. I wanted to say goodbye, but I also doubted that I could.
Once all the prison doors slammed behind me, the world changed. Two ICE agents shackled me and loaded me into a van. We rode in silence south to Manchester to a federal courthouse where I waited to be processed. They explained that I cannot be sent to my country of origin until the Consulate issues travel documents. How is it that I never knew that? It turns out that ICE doesn’t do any of that. ICE has no contact with the consulate which must somehow be accomplished by a prisoner while still in prison. No one ever told me.
But I was not permitted to call or contact the consulate from the courthouse. It had to be done from the next destination, the Strafford County Jail where ICE leases space for detainees. So after being handed a bologna sandwich (there are a lot of bologna sandwiches in this story), I was shackled again and placed into the same van for the drive further east to jail. So much for huddled masses yearning to be free. I’m back in prison, only an unfamiliar one. I got assigned to a top bunk above a really angry cellmate. Then word got around and I was mobbed by more Latinos than I have seen since I was 17. I had nothing. I didn’t know I could have anything. So I was herded to two or three cells where Latino prisoners I have never seen before and may never see again handed me their hard-earned canteen items: soap, toothpaste, a new toothbrush, packages of ramen noodles. It was a gesture of humanity that was humbling.
I’ll skip over the weeks – many weeks – of frustration there while daily trying without success to reach the Honduran Consulate through the inmate collect-call-only telephones. When I finally made contact with the Consulate number provided, I learned with dismay that I was actually talking to an intermediary in Tegucigalpa, Honduras who took my information to pass on to a Consulate in the U.S. I felt helpless and defeated, rage even, but I digress…
For weeks I am trying to talk to someone on the other end of the phone. I had been gone from my country of origin for so long that the Consulate had to set up an interview to confirm my identity. So I start all over again. I’m back to writing inmate request slips to get back in line to talk with the ICE agents when I finally figure out that I haven’t actually even been talking with a real person in the Consulate. (I’m gonna say Consulate a lot – sorry!). I ask the ICE agent who comes to the jail how I actually contact the Consulate to get this process rolling, and he just shrugs his shoulders.
I arrived at this jail to contact the Consulate for travel documents on October 23. It wasn’t until the second week of December that I was able to reach a family member who spent the next three days harassing the Consulate to produce a file.
Later that week I get called to the jail booking area. An ICE agent takes me to an office and places a call then hands me the phone. It was to the same Tegucigalpa operators I had been talking with to no avail for almost two months. Dead end! So I ask the ICE agent to please call the Consulate at the number I handed to him and ask for the lady whose name I gave him. Looking puzzled and defiant he finally places the call. Right there on the phone, that lady punched my file up on a computer then within a minute she issued the travel documents that I needed all along. Now I could be placed on a plane to Honduras. I was held hostage to that simple phone call for two months!
NEXT STOP, BOSTON
“So then I wait, day after day after day, for my name to be called so I could get out of that place. I hear other names every day, people who arrived after me and left before me. Then very early on December 17, I wake up hearing my name. I had been told that money sent in to me by my family could be taken to the next place. Wrong! I could not take anything with me, and had to send it back to my sister where it came from. To this day I don’t know whether she ever got it.
Then I’m shackled again and stuffed into another van. A two hour drive and now another jail, the Southbay Correctional Facility near Boston. I’m thinking I’ll be flown to freedom from Boston’s Logan Airport. Wrong again! The story I hear from other detainees is that anyone going south of the border is destined first for a private Louisiana prison until a plane load of people going to the same place is filled up.
At South Bay they book us and separate us by “threat level.” For that they judge only by crime, so I of course draw the highest even though the crime was 25 years ago when I was 17. So I’m handed a yellow jump suit. Everyone else gets orange or white. While changing, everyone starts pulling out soap, toothpaste, deoderant, pens, paper. Turns out I was the only one who took seriously the “bring nothing with you” order.
I find out I’m getting on a plane that Monday (Dec. 21), and I think it’s finally to Honduras and freedom. Wrong again, but I digress again. The worst part of this story is the waiting. Discomfort is nothing. It’s the waiting, and the total absence of even basic information. One day everyone protested by refusing to eat. It was an empty gesture. No one noticed or cared whether we ate or not.
In my yellow jump suit at South Bay, I’m told to go to cell #9. Guess who I see in the first bunk? It’s Timmy, that older guy from Ireland that I was in a class with back in the Concord prison. He had been sent here waiting for weeks and weeks. It was good to see a familiar face so we talked about the people we missed (your name came up, G, so did Pornchai’s).
After three days in yellow, I get back into the Concord prison greens that I’ve worn every day for two months. There’s no dignity in any of this. ICE is checking our “luggage.” Some guys have net bags filled with all the stuff we were told not to bring, but no one cares. Family could drop money off at the Burlington ICE office, and mine did so they show me the money which they sorted and stapled to an inventory sheet. Shackled and stuffed on a bus again, we’re off to… where?
We’ve waited varying amounts of time and we all think, “This is it! We’re leaving the U.S. for…” I can’t call Honduras “home” yet. Not after a 24-year prison sentence. So I’ll call it “freedom.” I keep telling myself I’m going to be free. There’s a party atmosphere on this plane. It reminded me of that Nicholas Cage movie, “Con Air.” The marshalls escorting us were just chillin’ like this is all just daily routine. They just let us think that we really were on our way home.
Then the anxiety set in. I’m on a plane for the first time since I was a child. This thing gets out over water and I begin thinking that it’s going to crash. Gut wrenching, absolute terror comes over me. Every bump and dip signals the end time for me. A prayer comes from somewhere deep. “Don’t let all these years in prison end this way. Let me breathe the free air just once before I die.” Sorry for the drama, but it felt very real just then.
It turned out that we were not headed for anywhere but a private prison in Louisiana called GEO-something. It’s like a county jail with its own runway. The plane pulls right up to a pen where we are all unchained wondering where we are. It’s about 9:00 PM and we wait for booking.
Into a huge tank we go, 24 at a time in one room. There’s a stainless steel toilet in each far corner, right out in the open with zero privacy. Benches along the wall are all filled. Others sitting on the floor. It’s now 1:00 AM and they are still cramming people in, telling us to be patient. People start acting up. They hand out bologna sandwiches in bags. (When I get to where I’m going, I’m buying stock in whatever company sells bologna sandwiches to ICE!)
It was freezing in there as I sat on the cold floor. After waiting all night, I was taken to a cellblock. Then some guy in a bandanna asks me, “¿A que le jalas? (“Who do you roll with?”) I did not know how to answer. Then another asks the same, “Who are you with?” I said, “I’m not with anyone.” They look at me like I’m an alien among aliens. I realize then that they’re asking me what gang I am with. I’m not with any gang. I explain that I’ve been in prison for 24 years and I’m just going home. (Did I just say, “home?”) The guy then tells me that I’ll have to talk to the guy who runs the place. And he doesn’t mean a guard.
Picture if you can that this place is 99 percent Spanish, and there are some visible Mexican and other gangs represented.
FELIZ NAVIDAD!
Then I notice this young, tall, nondescript kid with glasses, no shirt, walk over to me. He’s the guy “in charge.” “A que le jalas?” he asks. I explain again that I’ve been in for 24 years and I’m just going home to Honduras. “For real?” he says as he puts out his hand. He is from there too. He was just the opposite of what I expected “the guy in charge” to be. He was polite, respectful, well spoken. He told me all their rules and said that all problems should come to him first and never take matters in my own hands. Where was this guy when I was 17 and did just that?
Finally, he says (in Spanish) that he’s not asking me to join anything, “but while you’re here you’re with us if anything goes down.” With that news, I climb up on my bunk and try to
sleep. It is now 3:00 AM and I can’t shut my eyes. What exactly does “if anything goes down” mean? How long will I be here? I had no idea.
Rumors spread that there is a list going around of the people leaving the next day and everyone should listen for their name. So who could sleep? Around 8:00 AM I notice some commotion. A guy is reading off a list. So I jump down from my bunk and go over near the crowd. I hear my name along with four other guys who were in New Hampshire with me.
I’m moved back to another holding tank, and then an hour later we’re lined up in a long hallway. I’m given the money that my family had dropped off back in Burlington, Massachusetts. A bologna sandwich for breakfast. (Do they mass produce these things?) There are 80-plus of us, all shackled and cuffed and stuffed onto busses for a short ride to the runway and plane.
It’s 9:00 AM, on Wednesday, December 23, two days before Christmas and two full months since I left the Concord prison where I spent 24 years. I’m sitting on this bus at the runway, thinking that this is it. I’m finally on the way. But … where’s the plane? There’s no plane!
Morally demolished, we were all herded back into the prison to be booked back in to wait for another chance scheduled for the following Tuesday, December 29. I can’t even begin to describe the let down, the feelings of helplessness and discouragement. So we do what prisoners do most. We wait. In my lifetime, I have felt gut wrenching murderous rage only once. I was 17 years old and never in my life felt so out of control again. Not even now. Not even in this torturous place of apathy and disappointments in which freedom keeps being promised on the horizon only to elude us at every turn. No one told us anything except, “Back inside!”
Then I learned that the next flight will be at least ten days away, and I had no choice but to dig in and wait longer. This holding facility can only hold prisoners for seven days so that meant being brought someplace else, another adjustment, another prison, another horror show, before being herded back here to try again.
Six of us asked if we could be housed together this time. A guard says, “sure,” then disappears and we’re all split up again. I go through the whole booking thing again with a new set of total strangers. “Hey, who do you roll with?” It was a very long ten days. Christmas passed unnoticed.
Ten days later I heard my name called again. I was cuffed and shackled (I was inexplicably happy to be cuffed and shackled’) and led to the same bus for the same ride to the same runway. AND there was a plane there. None of the terror of the previous flight.
Twenty minutes before landing in Tegulcigalpa, Honduras – a place that has not been home for three decades – my shackles and restraints were removed. I stepped off the plane, and breathed in freedom for the first time since I was 17 years old. I am now 43.
EPILOGUE
My purpose in writing this was to help G help our friends, Max and Chen and others so they will know what to expect and how to be better prepared to avoid some of the heartache and discouragement I experienced.
It’s hard for me to explain what adjusting simultaneously to freedom and a foreign land has been like after all these years. G managed to get a message to me asking me to just live one day at a time for now, and to be patient with myself. A lot of what I went through in this adjustment feels creepy. I walk the city streets and feel as though everyone around me knows I don’t quite fit in, but that is slowly dissipating. I have been here for four months now and it is slowly becoming home.
One of the most helpful aspects of my adjustment to this new life in a new land in which I feel so isolated is the ability to go to a computer and visit These Stone Walls. I don’t utter many prayers, but I have a prayer of thanksgiving for that. It is a chance to visit an old friend – two old friends actually – and learn how they are and even communicate with them. That has been just wonderful! A lifeline into the foreign wilderness into which I’ve been thrown. I thank you all for being here and reading this.
Editor’s Note: Ryan A. MacDonald wrote about our friend, Pornchai Moontri’s eventual deportation which could take place anywhere from one to four years from now. He wrote of a few ways you could help, if willing. Please read and share “Thomas Merton and Pornchai Moontri: A Prayer for the Year of Mercy.”
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Elizabeth says
Hello Father.
I am a retired immigration officer. So thought I would comment on the deportation removal process, though not excuse it. At one time commercial airlines accepted as passengers people being deported who had just completed their criminal sentences; the government paying their fare and delivering them to the plane. The airlines no longer do, believing they are too much of a threat to the other passengers. So nearly all criminal aliens are returned to their countries by a government plane or a contracted airplane. The applying for and obtaining of passports is different for every country. Some require a very complicated process, others are relatively simple for persons who already have a passport. These individuals are completing sentences in federal, state and local correctional facilities all over the US and are going to nearly every nation on earth , in varying numbers. People are going to countries as close as Jamaica and as far away as Nepal. It’s a complicated process to gather these individuals into hub locations for their removals, and then removing them quickly. I truly believe that most ICE employees are doing the best they can and certainly do not want to make life worse for the persons being deported. Please don’t assume otherwise.
Father Gordon MacRAe says
I want to thank you for your insightful comment on my post about “Criminal Aliens.” Yours is a voice I very much wanted to hear. I have no doubt that ICE employs many professional and well-meaning people, and it sounds as though you were one of them.
It is the entire criminal justice system that is broken. My friend Augie had finished paying his debt to American society on the day he was picked up by ICE agents and began the long ordeal he and I described. I don’t blame the ICE agents for it seems they are simply overwhelmed. I have two other dear friends in this system, one from Bangkok who is in his 25th year in prison and one from Shanghai. Both were mere teenagers when their crimes were committed, and today they are good and decent men. I am very committed to aiding them in avoiding what Augie faced. The problem is for them that in this state prison system absolutely no one helps them prepare to be ready so that some of the red tape is cut.
May the Lord bless you and keep you,
Father Gordon MacRae
—
Marie Colliton says
I have always been on the side of the government on the issue of deporting aliens who commit crimes on American soil. I never before considered that our government would employ the kind of torture described in this post. I am so ashamed, after reading this. The process of sending this man home was delayed again and again because a whole lot of people were making a whole lot of money by stretching it out. The result was torture, no better than water-boarding, as this poor man who paid his debt to society was held for months waiting for the American government to get it’s act together. Thank you, once again, for telling us the painful truth of this story. I consider Augie a great man for having endured this, and now I think his removal was America’s loss. We could use some great men in America right about now.
Marie
Carol A Hall says
Agree with Treasa above article. Have been praying daily for your release Fr. Gordon from TSW.
Is anything new coming your way, like another hearing?? I remember the last one, you were NOT PERMITTED to say anything in your own defense!!! What good is a hearing like that??? I just DON’T understand that state of N.H. at all!!!! How stupid!!
Lupe says
I just feel so sad for all of these men. What a terrible failure of our people to be respectful of the human dignity of everyone in this story. God have mercy and grant us conversion of heart. keep praying, everyone.
Fr Gordon J. MacRae says
I can’t thank readers enough for these wonderful comments. I hope my friend Augie is reading them because I think they will give him some hope of his own. Just knowing that his story has been heard means a good deal. Whenever I post something on TSW, I never know where it will go. The large number of very thoughtful comments here has spurred me on to some further action, but I need your help to carry it out. With just a typewriter and use of a telephone (three telephones for 60 prisoners!) I have severe limits. There are many organizations out there online dedicated to criminal justice reform and immigration reform. We are not suggesting that those who commit crimes should not be returned to their country of origin. We are only suggesting that one-size-fits-all solutions do not work and are not the American way. You could help much by taking a few minutes to copy a link to this post and sending it to one or two of the criminal justice and immigration reform organizations found online. I thank you for your just and kind hearts. With Divine Mercy Blessings, Father Gordon MacRae
Juan says
Dear Augie,
I am glad you made it back to Honduras after what you went through in the process of getting back there. It seems that you are getting used to being back “home”. I can relate to this second part of your return process since I went through “culture shock” several times in my life, going back and forth between the USA and Spain some years ago.
I have been corresponding with Father Gordon MacRae (“G”, right?) for about five years now and he is kind enough to regard me as belonging to his group of friends. I read on TSW, through Fr. Gordon himself, that you have known each other for some 22 years now. I am sure you know the saying “los amigos de mis amigos son mis amigos” (my friends’ friends are my friends too ). I hope this can apply to us, Augie.
If it would help you exchanging an e-mail from time to time, please contact TSW Editor, she has my permission to give you my e-mail address
Augie, from now on you are in my prayers, like Father Gordon, Pornchai Max and the rest of the folks, both inside and outside the house.
God bless,
Juan.
Ryan A. MacDonald says
I also read Fr. M’s introduction and then put this aside for a day or so. It wasn’t until I read the comment by Dorothy Stein and I went back and read this entire post. Like Dorothy, I am simply appalled at was has taken place here. It’s easy to say that young men like Augie and Pornchai committed their crimes and were not “innocents.” However, I look back upon my life and remember my own recklessness as a teen, and I can only say “there but for by the grace of God go I.” when I look at them today, I see two profoundly good men who have paid every penny of their debt to society and not a one of us has any reason to judge them harshly. How dare we, as a country, exploit them in this way, profiting by the misery we inflict on them. Dorothy Stein is exactly right. The process of sending Augie to his country of origin should have taken mere hours, days, at best. Instead, he was dragged around to private prisons for two and a half months during which the tax payers of America paid a bill that was probably ten times greater than what it would have cost to simply book a flight for this guy and send him home. Only in America!
Ryan
Mary Jean Diemer says
Hi Father Gordon!
Thank you for sharing Augie’s story with us. How sad that America has so turned from the ways of God. Human dignity and compassion are so sorely lacking!
It is time to make America great again but this can only be accomplished by letting go and letting God.Too much control by those that shouldn’t have it.
We will keep the prayers going, especially foe Augie to succeed where he is and to stay the course and stay close with you and Max.
I also pray that when it is Max’s turn he will not have to go through the same deal. Of course, on going is the prayer for you Father Gordon, to be granted freedom and reversal of the false charges. May God grant what is in His Will to do. Sending love and blessings to you all. Jeannie
Clare says
What an amazing post. The delays and treatment of prisoners such as Augie is most concerning. Having served the sentence imposed by the law, he’s kept in the dark, not knowing where he will be from one day to the next.
Well before his release date Augie should have been given information on what travel documents would be required, an outline of what was to happen and a timeframe of events.
How hard is it to treat a person with respect, to provide information to a prisoner in a timely manner and to at least make an appearance of caring for their welfare? Having finally come to the release day, only to find that there is more upheaval and uncertainty, more mandatory detention and no firm date to return home is grossly unfair and quite cruel.
All those working in corrective services and ICE should have a long hard look at themselves and their behaviour towards prisoners and all those in their care. As Jesus said: “Treat others as you would have others treat you”.
When its Pornchai’s turn and he says Adios to prison, I hope and pray that he will keep smiling and focussed on the good days and a wonderful life awaiting him in Thailand.
Maria Stella says
A thought came to mind after reading Augie’s account of what transpired after his release from prison, and the other comments on this post.
Dorothy Stein writes ” How bizarre that the most powerful country on Earth will take months and months to move a man from Point A to Point B, something that should have taken hours and not months. It strikes me that every entity in this process is getting a profit from it, the country jails, the private prisons, the carriers, and others. This horror show that would have required a maze runner to endure was all carried out at taxpayer expense. ”
I live in Canada, not the US. In Canada, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) looks at different ways government money is wasted, and reports on it. I understand that citizens, at least in Canada can write OAG to bring items to the attention of the Auditor General. In the past, I’ve looked at the web site of the OAG and have seen the OAG’s response to the items brought to their attention. Sometimes, they decide there is no actual problem, but they still make public their response – at least that is my understanding. I’m not sure how the provincial AG’s handle items like this. (We have provincial auditor general as well, for each of the provinces).
I wonder if there is a similar process in the States where US citizens (e.g.. TSW readers) can draw the USA office of the Auditor General’s attention to -as D. Stein puts it, “this horror show…that was all carried out at taxpayer expense.” Sending the Auditor General a copy of Augie’s post might make a difference – not to Augie, but to prisoners that are deported in the future, if the deportation process is “streamlined”.
sean maloney says
FR. MacRae should do an article on AMERICAN FATHERS that are falsely accused of abuse to connect them to the family court system where progressive left leaning judges, lawyers and “alleged” court family investigators CAN HELP FACILATE THE FALSE CLAIM OF ABUSE(any kind will do) for the ILLEGAL ALIEN SPOUSE TO OVER COME DEPORTATION . I am a victim of the misuse of the ” violence against women act”. Every time I read a story like this I think that the social justice beliefs of the Catholic church is how the devil was able to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. ***There is no injustice in what happened to this young man; yes it is a tragedy but there were free will choices that were made and the outcome is not one of him being a real victim***(false allegations, separation from his children unjustly due to basically social service extortion and the immigration lawyer associations that use this tactic to make money and destroy the American citizen). My ex wife(ordered deported twice for fraud before I had 2 daughters from her) is also from Honduras. I have lost my American dreams in my own homeland due to our lack of justice for the real victims of immigration fraud.( It is like getting murdered over and over again when you think of the false allegations made to help someone over come their past crimes that the innocent spouse and loving father is now forced to pay for(living in the shadows alienated from his own children). The false accuser/illegal alien is given rights and support the father can NEVER RECIEVE . The USCB never speaks much about AMERICAN VICTIMS(and you wonder why nationalism is surpassing Christianity). I am sorry to regress but the true victims of false allegations like Father MacRae and my self are the real victims of the judicial system. The young man can restart his life as a person that has repented from his past and possibly help people from his new home(a person that has to live with false allegation is never whole again no matter where they settle down or get out of the court system).
Helen says
Sean, I am so very sorry for your pain. Please be assured of prayers for you. We serve a wonderful, gracious, giving God Who will surely assist you in your healing and send you mighty graces to over-come. May you be filled with peace and His love.
God bless and heal you, Sean.
Juan says
Dear Sean,
Thank you for sharing your situation with us. I strongly sympathize and side with you and I am uniting my prayers for you to Helen’s and others’ .
Without meaning to be “overly spiritual”, let us pray for the Holy Spirit to give you his Peace, Light and Strength in your present situation. Also that you may receive the Grace to be able to offer it all up to our Lord to unite it to His Passion to “complete” it in favor of all the sisters and brothers out there who also need it too, as St. Paul tells us to do. This does not exclude your doing whatever it is within your reach to better things.
What to say, talking about false allegations, of the falsely accused on death row? Of the recognized ones, there were 156 of them as of Oct, October 12, 2015, who were released from prison for not belonging there after 2 to 39 years (average 11.3) on the row. We also know that some persons, who on solid grounds should not have been on death row, were actually executed.
Sean, please realize that once Augie Reyes had paid his dues to the judicial system, it was not right at all the way he was treated: that qualifies for being another injustice committed by the “justice” system.
The Peace of our Lord be always with you,
Juan.
HELEN says
AMEN
Maria Stella says
Dear Augie, I had to put this aside after reading Fr.G’s introduction…and work up the courage to read it…I’ve just finished it and have somewhat overcome my indignation at what happened to you after your release. Thank you for writing this and making us aware of this further injustice. Please know
you are in my prayers and will continue to be. l hope you continue to keep in touch with us through your comments on Fr. G’s blog.
God bless.
Dorothy R. Stein says
I hope Augie is able to read these comments from where he is. I am very proud of him for stepping up to write this. Most people in his position would just shake the American dust off their shoes and move on. You and Augie have done a great public service by exposing this horror story. How bizarre that the most powerful country on Earth will take months and months to move a man from Point A to Point B, something that should have taken hours and not months. It strikes me that every entity in this process is getting a profit from it, the country jails, the private prisons, the carriers, and others. This horror show that would have required a maze runner to endure was all carried out at taxpayer expense. Augie, I give you much credit for your endurance and for having the courage and concern to tell this story so others may learn from it. One can only imagine what it has taken to adjust to freedom and another land after all these years, all thrust on you at the same time. What a good man you are!
Helen says
Lord God, Almighty, forgive me for ever complaining.
In my newly expanded humility, Fr. Gordon; God bless You, Max, Augie, and all prisoners, especially those in most need of His Mercy.
Helen
M says
Hi Augie
I have been following Father G for years. Thank you for sharing your story I will be praying for you.
Joan Ripley says
Thank you, Fr. Gordon, for another unbelievable post. Thank God Augie finally made it ‘home’ and I hope things are working out for him. Is there no one in the system who ever stops to think that your sentence doesn’t quite make sense? Prayers and all good wishes for Augie and all of you there.
Joan
Charlene says
Augie, you are truly a gem for sharing with us this most intimate story of your deportation. It is a chilling story of the injustices suffered by those leaving prison after serving their time. Your experiences will be invaluable to my Godson, Pornchai Moontri, as he prepares to return to Thailand, and to others who are facing deportation. Thank you for this chilling account of what many go through every day. Thank God that you are now free! Stay strong! May God bless and keep you close to Him!
Paulineo says
This evening after supper, I thought again about Augie Reyes, and wondered if there is anything we, on the outside who are free, can help to establish some sort of system of resources, to help Augie now and in the future. Not only Augie, but others who will be in the same position as he now is, when they are released.
With help, he could be on his feet sooner rather than later. I don’t really know what I am proposing, but when you consider that Fr. Gordon has These Stone Walls, for everyone to read, which had a beginning, then the sky is the limit.
Any ideas anyone?
Mary Fran says
Augie, this is one of the most moving posts that I have ever read on These Stone Walls. Some time last month, Father G wrote a post about time in a prison, how much of it was spent waiting. Waiting for this. Waiting for that. You have put a face on this waiting; you have fleshed it out and shown us just how this waiting is done. I keep shaking my head over what you say here. It is unbelievable how frustrating our “justice” system is for anyone caught up in it and what you had to put up with since the day you were “set free”. One must learn much patience to get through a day in prison in one piece. Here in my small town in Virginia, even here, if you are not halfway through the traffic light when it turns green, the cars behind are honking. I wonder how they would cope with all you have had to cope with.
When you first left prison, I assumed that the very next day you would be in Honduras. And I worried about you, leaving everything and everyone you knew behind. Dropped onto the middle of a strange planet. Penniless. Friendless. And, I prayed for you every day, offered many of my Masses and communions for you.
Father G told me in a letter earlier this year that he had heard from you. And I rejoiced that such a thing had even been possible. In my next letter, perhaps next week, I planned to ask him if he had had any further news of you. And here you are telling me that yourself. Wonder of wonders. I am so thankful that you and Father G have somehow managed to work out a way of keeping in touch.
Thank you, Augie, for all that you have shared here of your difficulties. Hopefully, they will continue to lessen with time. Hope to hear more of your adventure in the future.
And, Father G, thanks for giving Augie the stage. His writing is compelling.
Paulineo says
So often, when I read these great articles, I am amazed at the quality and content of not just the articles, but the wonderful comments of the readers.
The treatment of Augie and the other inmates is vile. They have all had to learn to be patient during the many years spent in prison, but to know first-hand what this one inmate felt, deep down inside, is heartbreaking.
Augie is now on my daily prayer-list, and I often pray for all the staff and inmates of the prison where Augie spent so many years. Prayer can and does change things just as a pebble thrown into a pond changes the surface of the water forever.
Have courage Augie, and never despair. Thank you for this great story, and I sincerely hope and pray that your life will become brighter each day.
Juli says
Wow. I admit I’m a law and order Republican, but you present the human side quite clearly. I wish we could trust judges to judge. But I live in the Chicagoland area, and unfortunately, in Chicago and in the towns around me many of our hardened criminals are treated like fish an a ‘catch and release’ program. These very liberal judges do NOT do their jobs of protecting the law abiding citizens of all colors and ethnicities.
So the pendulum swings in the direction of giving less discretion, which is not good.
Besides reading this blog, I read the New Oxford Review and have donated money to their ‘scholarships for prisoners’ program where they send free subscriptions. It surprised me when I started reading the magazine that in the letters (which can run long) to the editor there were letters from prisoners. I would be reading a very insightful letter that was written by someone who was obviously very close to God and Church, and at the end it would show that it came from a prisoner. Quite humbling for me to realize that there are many in prison closer to Him than I am!
So I thank you, the NOR and all who write in for showing me a new world of grace.
Jim Preisendorfer says
Fr. Gordon I have just said prayers for Augie and his continued adjustment to life outside of the stone walls of prison. It appears God had a plan for Augie to go through all so Max, Chen and others that will be deported upon leaving Prison what they need to expedite their return to their “homelands”.
God bless and peace be with you,
Jim <
Liz F. says
Sometimes when I read your posts, Father, I have to keep my anger in check. Why prisoners (even those being released!) are not treated with human dignity and respect is beyond me! It’s outrageous. In any case, we offered our rosary for Augie and also I offered my Holy Communion for him today. God bless and keep him and you, Pornchai and the others.
J.B.S. says
I feel so badly, that in all 40+ years of my exchanging with prisoners, I wasn’t able to change anything. Even though I’ll be 83 soon, I still write to one former inmate who finally made it home to family! God Bless all!! Grandma Jeanette
Treasa says
Hello again Father,
What a roller coaster of an account about/by Augie Reyes. It is hard to imagine so much injustice exists in the so called “land of the free and the brave”. What a misnomer. Please God life will be kinder to him from now on.
As for your own situation….it amazes me that the hierarchy cannot see through the mist of the years and get moving on your case. I guess too many lily livered to show such a brave move, It is said many have skeletons in their own cupboards.
Your faith is astounding…I hope you are able to practice your priesthood there in prison. What consolation that would be.
God Bless you Father. I hope you get some good news there e.g. the Little Sisters of the Poor were successful in the Supreme Court – case to be sent back to the lower court and they are not to be forced to go against their Faith. A glimmer of light finally. Justice Scalia must be smiling. (what a strange death his was).
Your old Irish friend in Oz.
Treasa