Angelina Marquez fled death threats by MS-13 gang members in her native El Salvador in 2014, with the hope of seeking asylum in the United States. She was detained by Border Patrol agents in McAllen, Texas, during the Obama administration. Marquez—a pseudonym as she is still awaiting a final judgment on her asylum case—shared her story of being detained alongside her 6-year-old son with Newsweek. Newsweek was able to corroborate the major points of her story by reviewing court documents and speaking with her lawyer. What follows is Marquez’s story in her own words, as told to reporter Jessica Kwong.

Fleeing El Salvador for the United States was a matter of life or death for my 6-year-old son and me. It all started with being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was 15 years old living with my family in the province of Morazán when my panicked father woke me up at 1 a.m. to the smell of smoke. He told me and my siblings to evacuate. By then, the flames of a nearby factory fire had already reached the roof of our home.

I was afraid of dying. Once we made it outside, my father and I heard yelling from inside the factory, and we assumed from the regular security guard. Then we saw young men from our neighborhood, who were MS-13 gang members, run out of the burning building. They saw us, too.

My father testified as a witness in the murder of the security guard. He was killed by the gang two years later for doing so. Gang members were later charged in his death.

I thought I was safe and in my early twenties started combating crimes against women with the Salvadoran Justice Department. That’s when gang members began harassing me again. I received violent threats and survived a sexual assault.

They tried to kill me, too, and I realized it was no longer an option for me to stay in my country. My son and I had to leave.

In September 2014, at the age of 25, I set out with my son, my 16-year-old sister and a map of a route to cross the borders of Guatemala and Mexico, all in hopes of seeking asylum in the United States.

We cleared the dangers of crossing the borders, including human and drug trafficking, and made it across the Rio Grande. After walking for hours, Border Patrol agents stopped us in McAllen, Texas. Truthfully, we didn’t try to run, because we came looking for help. We wanted to apply for asylum.

But being detained was harder than I expected. I am angry and disturbed by the way they treated a lot of women.

I told officials I was running away from gangs, but they dismissed me. “Everyone is saying that, but the gangs can’t do anything to you because they’re just a small group,” one of them told me. The official claimed it was my country’s problem, and that I was “just coming here to work.”

They brought us to cells with temperatures so low we called them hieleras, or iceboxes. The bathrooms were in the front part of the cells, the same area where they brought us food.

After five days, we were transported to a detention center in Artesia, New Mexico. The treatment there wasn’t any better, but at least we had cots.

You had to ask an official for everything, even soap and shampoo to shower. The shampoo made our hair fall out. Menstruating women got only one sanitary pad a day, so we would take turns asking for pads even when it wasn’t our time of the month, and shared with the women who needed them.

A lot of children became ill from the food they provided us. The milk was spoiled, the cereals expired.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they fed us sandwiches, which were the only real meals our kids could eat. The mothers would also save the chips and cookies we got and trade with each other based on our children’s preferences. When authorities performed their checks, they would take away any snacks we had saved, even if they were sealed, to control rat infestations, so we would try to have them in our hands or hide them.

My son was too young to truly understand what we were living through. He and his friends spent their playtime re-enacting what was happening to us, from detention to our removal proceedings. They would run around saying, “La migra”—the Border Patrol—”is coming,” and they would go to the hieleras. The boys pretended some of them were officials, that others had to go to court, some acted like judges and lawyers. They even set bail amounts.

My son would ask me, “When are we going to get out?” and “Why are we locked up?” It was very difficult for me to answer him because I had always tried to shield him from what I suffered through in El Salvador. Sometimes I would tell him, “We’ll get out and see your aunt,” because he would ask where my sister was taken. But deep down, I didn’t know if we would ever be let out, if we would ever see her again or if they would deport us, which I feared most.

After two months in detention, my son and I were released when family members paid our bail. But my son, who is 10 years old now, has not stopped crying. He has overheard conversations I’ve had with my lawyer and knows I’m awaiting my last court date for asylum and doesn’t want me to go before a judge.

“Mom, don’t go to court because if you go, they’re going to deport you, and I’ll be left here,” he says, because he’s seen families being separated on TV.

https://www.newsweek.com/surviving-american-detention-center-my-6-year-old-son-1012641

Over the next 24 hours, two more men were killed in gun violence a mile apart in a gang-plagued area already targeted for special enforcement by police and prosecutors.

The four shootings in the first five days of 2016 grew to 55 over the next 45 days, a spike in violence not seen in decades in the city that dubs itself Orange County’s downtown. As broken families held vigils for the dead and wounded, investigators pored over near-daily shooting scenes and residents peered warily from their homes, law enforcement leaders, elected officials and researchers struggled to pinpoint the cause and determine if a new era of bloodshed was dawning.

And then, according to Police Chief Carlos Rojas, the spasm of violence receded. How much isn’t completely clear because the Police Department stopped releasing shooting totals, which had helped fuel headlines in the first weeks of the year. Instead, Rojas noted that in February, major violent crimes reported to the FBI dropped 24 percent from the previous month and remained at roughly that level through the remainder of the year.

But community concern and the political repercussions of the surge of shootings became a central focus of the November City Council campaign, which highlighted public safety and reset the balance of power at City Hall.

POLICE UNION’S ROLE?

One political winner was the Santa Ana Police Officers Association, which criticized the leadership of Rojas and the city manager and spent nearly $300,000 supporting a slate of candidates that included the longtime mayor, Miguel Pulido. Three of the four candidates backed by the union, including Pulido, were elected, unseating an incumbent council member for the first time in decades.

Three weeks ago, in one of the new City Council’s first actions, a majority that included three lawmakers supported by the police union placed City Manager David Cavazos on paid administrative leave, citing performance evaluations and concerns about a City Hall personnel matter involving him. The allegations harked back to a Pulido-initiated investigation of Cavazos’ relationship with a subordinate female city employee that resulted in his censure by the International City/County Management Association.

The move against Cavazos signaled a partial reversal of the 2012 election results. In that so-called Santa Ana Spring election, voters installed a slate of candidates that promised greater City Hall transparency and responsiveness and unseated a majority allied with the mayor. That group fired the previous city manager, who was supported by Pulido, and hired Cavazos. Rojas was hired under the new administration.

In the runup to the election, officers union President Gerry Serrano attacked Rojas’ management and policing strategies, which in part emphasized assigning officers to neighborhood beats where they would get to know residents, in lieu of beefing up specialized enforcement units.

In an email to the news media and city elected officials last summer, Serrano released figures showing a more than 550 percent increase in shootings for the first half of the year compared with the same period four years earlier, when Rojas became chief.

Specifically, Serrano criticized Rojas for reassigning officers to the neighborhood beats, cutting back on resources allocated for gang suppression, and failing to reinstate a police strike force that had been used to respond to crime hot spots.

“Violent crime continues to rise at an unbelievable rate, yet patrol staffing remains below minimum staffing levels,” Serrano wrote. “What is Rojas doing to address this? Nothing. What is Cavazos doing to address this? Nothing.”

Since Rojas took over, Serrano added, officer morale is down and many are retiring early.

CRIME STATISTICS

Pulido said in an interview that the realignment of the City Council will help ensure a return to successful policing strategies.

Violent crime prevention in the city “kind of went backward,” he said. “We need to continue to make progress. Going backward and even holding our own is not acceptable.”

Responding to the police union’s portrayal of rising crime, Cavazos released a report showing Santa Ana had a 74 percent reduction in murders, aggravated assaults, forcible rapes, robberies, arsons and property crimes from 1987 to 2012, based on moving three-year averages.

Rojas cited 2016 overall crime data, reported to the FBI, which showed violent and property crimes peaked at 871 incidents in January and dipped into the 600s and 700s thereafter.

“It does appear to be slowing down a little bit,” Rojas said, “which is good.”

POLICE UNION MAILERS

In the months leading up to the election, records show the police union provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to help fund mailers and television advertisements endorsing its slate of candidates and attacking council incumbents. The expenditures included the majority of contributions to an independent political action committee, California Homeowners Association, which spent nearly $100,000 opposing council members Roman Reyna and Vicente Sarmiento, a Register analysis found.

One of the PAC’s mailers carried a headline asking: “Want to know who to blame for Santa Ana’s rising crime? It’s Reyna and Sarmiento!” The mailer also included a reproduction of a Register article on Cavazos, the city manager, which noted that he received a bonus amid allegations of misconduct and highlighted a reference to “a romantic relationship with a subordinate city employee.”

The police officers association’s independent spending far exceeded that by a police union-endorsed candidate, Orange County sheriff’s officer Juan Villegas, who unseated Reyna.

Council supporters of the police chief and Cavazos, who clashed with Pulido over various City Hall projects, see the election results not as referendum on the city’s public safety programs but as a power grab by the police union, which among other things is seeking raises for members and more officer hiring for patrol shifts.

Reyna, who grew up in a gang-infested community near El Salvador Park, said at a recent council meeting that the spike in shootings early in 2016 appeared to be tied to a struggle involving the role of a top gang leader and not deficient city policing tactics.

“The other gang members all wanted to sit in that leadership position so they fought literally with guns to see who could get that position,” Reyna said.

DIFFERING VIEWS

At the first meeting of the new City Council last month, Councilman Sal Tinajero, Cavazos’ most vocal supporter, complained about what he portrayed as political strong-arm tactics by the police union. He alleged that Serrano, the group’s president, “met with different folks, saying: ‘If you fire the chief of police, we will support you. The only way to get to the chief of police is to fire the city manager. We are going to raise over $400,000 and those who support this, we will support, and those who don’t, we are going to run someone against you,’”

“He asked me … ‘So Sal, are we going to throw a body out the window?’” Tinajero continued. “This (police union) is who’s just taken over our city.”

Tinajero also defended Rojas’ leadership, saying: “You see for the first time in our city, officers are being held accountable. … We need to help our community be safe and being safe means that we need community policing. We need a relationship with our police officers.”

Serrano said evaluating the city manager is the job of the City Council, not the police union.

“It’s not our issue,” he said. “Why Councilman Tinajero wants to include me in it, I have no idea.”

And his union’s involvement in this Santa Ana election was “nothing out of the ordinary,” Serrano said.

“All unions invest when it comes to election – that’s what we do, we look out and try to support elected officials that are supportive of labor unions,” he said. “I look forward to working with our entire City Council and being part of moving the city forward.”

CHANGES COMING?

Pulido said he expects that the new City Council will revive a gang suppression unit.

“Part of it is we have to go back to basics. … We need to work closely with the community and do many of the things we’ve done in the past,” Pulido said. “We know what works, and it’ll work again.”

Similarly, Jose Solorio, another police union-endorsed candidate elected in November, said bringing down gang violence and shootings will require restoring gang unit officers and more transparency of crime statistics.

“It’s time for the city to step up and do something about it,” Solorio said. “I think with the addition of myself and council member Juan Villegas, we both have very strong pro-public safety backgrounds.”

Councilwoman Michele Martinez was the swing vote, siding with Pulido and his two newly elected allies to place Cavazos on leave. The councilwoman supported Cavazos’ hiring, but her opinion shifted after he alleged Martinez sexually harassed and made romantic advances toward him. A city-ordered external investigation found that his allegation was without merit.

Martinez said she’s not aligned with either City Council camp and doesn’t vote based on their agendas.

“I’m very independent. I think in both sides, it’s all political and the city manager is right in the middle,” she said. “I will be working with anyone who is willing to set good policy.”

Pulido has said talk of an alliance between him and the police union is irrelevant, and the election results are what counts.

“Do people who work harder sometimes gain more votes? Yes,” Pulido said.

FIRE THE CITY MANAGER?

While the shooting-per-day average from the beginning of 2016 hasn’t been the case for the first weeks of this year, last Saturday night was the most violent in recent memory, with six people shot, according to Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.

On the political front, it appears the reverberations of the November election are just beginning. Cavazos supporters say they are committed to checking the political power of the mayor and police officers association at City Hall.

“We have a strong, solid team in the council” that among other things supports the current police chief, Councilman David Benavides said.

Five votes are needed to fire a city manager, who has the authority to appoint and remove the police chief.

The sharply divided council is expected to revisit Cavazos’ employment in closed session before today’s council meeting.

https://www.ocregister.com/2017/01/18/how-a-violent-month-in-santa-ana-set-the-stage-for-council-infighting-election-angst-and-jobs-possibly-lost/