Illicit Trade Read online

  Vermeulen didn’t know the answer. As usual, Suarez hadn’t told him anything before sending him on this errand.

  Trying to suppress his impatience with the entire situation, he asked, “Can I speak to Mr. Odinga? Where is he? Where are the other three?”

  “Odinga is probably in Elizabeth. Two of the others are somewhere in the system. The third waived his right to a hearing and was deported.”

  “Can I have copies of these letters? I’ll have to ascertain their origin.” Sunderland slipped him an envelope. “And I’d like to make an appointment to speak with Mr. Odinga.”

  “Does it look like I’m in charge of his calendar? You want to talk to him, you go across the Hudson and stand in line.” Sunderland thrust his ruddy face forward so that Vermeulen could smell the onions on his breath. “Just so we understand each other, Vermoolen, until the United Nations cleans up this mess, the officers at JFK will give special attention to UN invitees. We may not be able to prevent the world’s dictators from coming here and spewing their venom, but we sure as hell can keep their unwashed rabble out.”

  Vermeulen got up. At the door, he turned. “Good thing the Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor. That way, the passengers arriving at JFK won’t see its inscription. They might confuse this country with one that actually cares.”

  Chapter Three

  It took Vermeulen the entire afternoon and part of the next morning to locate Joseph Odinga. Nobody at Immigration and Customs Enforcement seemed to have any interest in making his job easier. Maybe Sunderland had told them to give him the runaround. At ten thirty, after umpteen transfers, a woman with a kind voice finally confirmed that Joseph Odinga was indeed being held at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility.

  He rented a car and set out for the Lincoln Tunnel. The only part of New Jersey he’d ever seen was the Newark Airport and the stretch of the Jersey Turnpike the cab took to get him back to Manhattan. The route to the detention center was the same trip in reverse. After merging onto the eastern spur of the turnpike, he settled into the right lane, maintaining a comfortable distance from the eighteen-wheeler in front of him. There was no reason to hurry. The other drivers didn’t feel the same way. Their incessant lane changing would have made a Buddhist monk antsy.

  He passed a service area. In the distance to his left, he saw the still-incomplete structure of the new World Trade Center rising into the sky. It was a splendid design, a worthy successor to the original destroyed in the 2001 attacks. He’d visited the site upon his return to New York. The two memorial pools in the footprints of the old towers invited reflection and empathy. He couldn’t say the same about the politics of the last decade. Everything was touched by the global war on terror, including immigration policy. For all he knew, this drive to Elizabeth wouldn’t have been necessary before all the new rules and laws were enacted.

  The Meadowlands rolled by, then the Passaic River. The massive steel bridge of the Pulaski Skyway followed. The vegetation of the marshland gave way to oil storage tanks, the iconic landmarks of Central Jersey. An exit sign announced the Newark Airport. The oil tanks were replaced by a forest of billboards. To the left loomed the massive container cranes of the Port of Newark. He thought that this particular spot had to be the acme of transport evolution in human history. A jet taking off, a twelve-lane highway choking with traffic, an endless freight train chugging along, and a huge cargo vessel being unloaded—all of it happening at the same time in the same place.

  The blue IKEA store inched into view. Easing right at exit 13A, he paid his toll, dove into a sea of warehouses and off-airport parking areas, and passed a FedEx sorting facility. The traffic, mostly trucks, barely eased forward. The detention facility was a low-slung yellow brick warehouse structure. The only interruptions in its monotonous brick wall were a row of windows just below the flat roof and four wide loading doors. A sign warned him that double parking was prohibited and that his car would be subject to towing. Another sign pointed to the entrance. He parked in the visitor lot across the street.

  Ten people were standing near the wire mesh fence and gate. They’d bundled up against the chilly March air. Over their jackets, they wore white T-shirts with the words “Not One More Deportation.” When they saw him approach, they began shouting that slogan.

  He raised his hands. “I’m just here to visit a detainee.”

  A woman in her late twenties with thick black hair and a café-au-lait complexion motioned for the others to quiet down.

  “Are you a lawyer?” she said.

  “No.” He hesitated a moment. “Well, yes, I am, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then you must be a consular official.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then you won’t be visiting anyone for another three hours.”

  “What?”

  “Visiting hours don’t start until five p.m. on weekdays.”

  It had never occurred to him to check for visiting hours.

  “I work for the United Nations,” he said. “I think they are going to let me in.”

  She eyed him with curiosity.

  “The United Nations? Are you finally investigating Obama’s deportations?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’m here for a different reason.”

  Her disappointment lasted only a second. “Well, you should. What’s going on here is totally in violation of the Refugee Convention and other human rights treaties.”

  “That may well be,” he said. He liked the fire in her eyes. “Unfortunately, it’s not my job. You should contact the Human Rights Council. I’m sure they have a special rapporteur for this.”

  He passed through the gate and headed for the entrance, a fake porte-cochère flanked by poles flying the U.S. and American Prisons Corporation flags. The reception area was bisected by a glass-enclosed counter and a barred metal door. Nobody was in the waiting area.

  He stated his case to a heavyset white woman behind the window. She listened for a moment and interrupted him.

  “Visiting hours start at five p.m. No visitors before that.”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I’m not a visitor. I’m a United Nations representative, here to follow up on a case brought to us by the immigration authorities.”

  “Are you the attorney for one of the inmates?”

  “No, what I’m trying to tell you—”

  “Are you a consular official?”

  “No, I’m with the United Nations. There’s a man here—”

  “Visiting hours start at five p.m.”

  He’d tried to keep calm, but the stubbornness of this woman was getting to him.

  He raised his voice just a little. “Listen, ma’am. There is a man in this facility who supposedly used a forged United Nations letter. Immigration and Customs Enforcement called us and I’m here to investigate that claim.”

  “If you aren’t an attorney or consular official you’ll have to wait until five.”

  He swallowed and reminded himself that the little bit of power her position behind the window gave her was all the power she’d ever have in her life.

  “Can I speak to your supervisor, please?”

  “He isn’t going to say anything different. Leave the building and wait till five or I’ll have to call security.”

  He’d dealt with enough petty bureaucrats to know that the next round would result in his not getting to see Joseph Odinga. So he turned and left the building.

  “Didn’t get in, did you?” the woman with the black hair said.

  He shook his head.

  “Are you really with the United Nations?”

  He nodded and stretched out his hand. “Valentin Vermeulen, Office of Internal Oversight Services.”

  The woman shook his hand. She had a soft grip. “Alma Rodriguez, Unidad Latina. I’ve never met anyone working for the United Nations.”

  “And I’ve never met anyone working for Unidad Latina.”

  Alma Rodriguez smiled. “I think there might be a slig
ht difference. Listen, we’re about to wrap up. You want to get a cup of coffee? I’m guessing you’re not driving back to Manhattan to come back at five.”

  “You’re right. Are you done protesting?”

  “We’re here to bear witness to the deportations. Those usually happen before two. There’s a diner up the road. I’d love to pick your brain on what the UN can do to help us.”

  “I’m afraid you overestimate my knowledge and influence, but yes, I’d love a cup of coffee.”

  Chapter Four

  From the outside, the diner looked like a repurposed fast-food franchise. Not like the chrome-sided classics he’d seen in photographs. Inside, a brown Formica counter with a copper-clad espresso machine and a pie case ran along one wall. A row of old bar stools were bolted to the floor in front of the counter. Brown vinyl booths occupied the other side of the room. A handful of tables with chairs filled the space in between.

  He pulled out a chair for Alma, which earned him another smile.

  “A real gentleman,” she said.

  Vermeulen felt a flash of embarrassment. Was he really so old-fashioned? Rodriguez must have noticed the reaction, because she said, “It’s very nice, don’t get me wrong. I’m just not used to it.”

  A fiftyish waitress approached with a menu the size of an unfolded highway map. Her name tag read ‘Sandy.’

  “Coffee, hon?” she said to Rodriguez.

  “Please.”

  “And you?”

  “Yes,” Vermeulen said. “What kind of sweets do you have?”

  “We got apple pie, pecan pie, Boston cream pie, and blueberry pie.”

  “I’ll have the blueberry pie. Anything for you, Ms. Rodriguez? It’s my treat.”

  Rodriguez hesitated a moment. “Sure, I’ll have a piece of apple pie. And, please, call me Alma.”

  “Sure, if you call me Valentin.”

  “À la mode?” Sandy said.

  They both nodded without hesitation, which made them laugh.

  “When I was a kid, we only got ice cream in the summer,” Vermeulen said. “One of my pleasures as an adult is eating ice cream even in the winter.”

  “I grew up in Guadalajara. It seemed like there were ice cream vendors everywhere pushing little carts down the streets. My abuelita used to buy me frozen treats. Got me hooked for life.”

  Sandy came back with two industrial-grade mugs, a carafe of coffee, and a pitcher of cream.

  “So, are you protesting at the detention center every day?” Vermeulen said.

  Rodriguez took a sip of coffee. “Ahh, it’s nice and hot. Yes, we try to have a presence there every day from ten to two. To be honest, we don’t manage to cover every day. Our volunteers have to make a living. Since I work part-time for Unidad Latina, I can be here more often, but I also go to college, so I have to juggle my schedule.”

  She noticed his raised eyebrows. “Yes, I know I’m a little old for college, but it’s the soonest I could afford to go.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “Human resources management. But enough about me. What do you do at the United Nations?”

  “I work for an agency that audits and investigates fraud. The UN is a large organization, and my agency’s job is to make sure that nobody defrauds it.”

  “Why does that bring you to an ICE detention center?”

  Vermeulen hesitated. There wasn’t really anything secret about the case, but that didn’t mean he should be telling everyone about it.

  Sandy came and brought the pies, a welcome interruption. He took a bite and savored the blending of the blueberry and vanilla flavors. Pie was such a unique American treat, and this one was well made with a flaky crust and a filling not too sweet. He took another bite before coming up with an answer.

  “There’s an allegation that a man detained there used UN materials without authorization. I want to find out if that’s the case.”

  Alma seemed to be enjoying her pie, too, but not enough to have missed his calculated phrasing. “You sound like a bureaucrat, hiding rather than revealing things.”

  That barb stung. Vermeulen didn’t think of himself as a bureaucrat. If anything, bureaucrats were his adversaries.

  “That’s not fair,” he said. But he knew she was right. She took another bite and washed it down with more coffee.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you. Because you said a lot more than you thought you did. The man in question was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so there was something wrong with his paperwork. But he made it to JFK, so he must’ve had a visa. They wouldn’t have let him on the plane otherwise. That means he probably used fake documents to get the visa. Since most Europeans can get visas without having to supply supporting documentation, my guess is he came from a third-world country. Most arrivals here are from Africa and the Middle East, places where the UN is active. Did he use a fake UN letter?”

  Vermeulen tried to hide his surprise. “I didn’t say he came through JFK.”

  “Listen, obviously the person isn’t Mexican or Central American. There’s not much of a UN presence there. So he must’ve come from elsewhere. JFK is the place where people from elsewhere arrive. There are no international flights to La Guardia. Newark is possible but not as likely as JFK.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You are very good.”

  “I’ve been an immigration activist since before I became legal. I’ve heard so many stories. Desperate people choose desperate strategies.”

  “I don’t even know if the letter was fake or not. It could all be above board. That’s why I need to talk to him.”

  “I know,” she said. “I can’t get over the power individual officers at the border have in deciding who’s allowed in and who isn’t. Even if all your paperwork is in order, you can still be denied entry if some guy doesn’t like your nose. Once you disappear into the system, it’s really hard to be heard.”

  “Is that why you are out there?”

  “Yes, we think it’s important that we bear witness to the daily toll of this country’s messed up immigration policy. Obama is worse than any of his predecessors. Since his ‘Safe Communities’ program started, his administration has deported four hundred thousand people a year.” She took a bite of pie and chewed for a moment. “ICE says they only deport hardened criminals, but that’s a lie. The last case I know of is a mom from Hackensack whose blinker was broken. The cops pulled her over. Since she was undocumented, she didn’t have a license. They took her in and notified ICE. A day later she was picked up by ICE and is now detained at the center. Her two kids are citizens. So is her husband. They are going crazy doing what they can to keep her from being deported. Once she’s out of the country, she can never come back legally.”

  “What are her chances?”

  She gave a weary shake of her head. “Not good. Worse than fifty/fifty. We found a good lawyer—pro bono, of course—who’s filed the necessary paperwork to make sure she stays in Elizabeth and isn’t transferred elsewhere. During the hearing he’s going to make the case that she doesn’t qualify for expedited removal, because she has no criminal history and hasn’t repeatedly entered the country without proper documents.”

  Although he’d entered the U.S. more often than he could remember, he'd never considered this aspect of U.S. law. “Do detainees get transferred a lot?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes it feels like they transfer them to keep them from getting legal representation. We’ve had lawyers show up here only to find out that their clients had been moved to Pennsylvania or even Georgia. That makes it even harder to get them legal advice.”

  He looked at this watch. “Then I’d better finish my pie and get over to the facility. I wouldn’t want Mr. Odinga to disappear.”

  Chapter Five

  Joseph Odinga, who had never been to a prison, didn’t know how to behave in one. He stayed silent and avoided conversations. They had just returned from dinner, if you could call four in the afternoon dinnertime. But that schedule suit
ed the corrections officers, so that’s when they got dinner. Besides, visiting hours started at five, and the detainees would rather visit than eat bad food.

  Dormitory B was buzzing with anticipation. Some had regular visitors—they’d lived in the area for fifteen or twenty years, put down roots, and were caught with a broken tail light. The ones who didn’t were the tattooed gangbangers on their way back to El Salvador or Honduras and the folks nabbed at JFK.

  Joseph could tell the difference between the men torn from families—heartbroken and consoling each other—and the men with that predatory look in their eyes. Much of the talk around him was in Spanish. The jokes, the stories, the shouted encouragements were lost on him. What little English he spoke was enough to go to chow, the bathroom, and the showers and to stay out of the way of the tattooed guys.

  He spent most of his day lying on his bed, number 39. There were ten beds on the loft, five each on either side of a waist-high partition. His bed was next to it. Even though he could see right through it, it gave him a sense of privacy. He’d never have thought that he’d value privacy. Kibera was a huge slum. People lived on top of each other, sometimes literally. But that closeness didn’t mean they’d be in your shack. You could always close the door.

  The open toilets at the detention center bothered him the most. Even in Kibera, you did your business in private. Here, you had to do it in front of anyone who walked by. That’s why he waited until after dinner, when everyone had settled down or was off to the visiting room.

  He lay on his bed until the shuffling sounds of people milling about had stopped and the voices quieted. He got up, inched past the partition and the other five beds, and walked down the stairs to the main level. Thirty beds stood there in groups of four, also divided by partitions. A few men were lying on their beds. Three guys were playing cards at the tables near the entrance. Most stood by the door waiting to be called for visits. Some Spanish TV show droned from an ancient TV hanging above the door. Five of the six tattooed guys were dozing on their beds.