Technology is Turning Immigration Detention into an Invisible Leash

Mariela crossed into Arizona just after dawn, her daughter Isabela pressed tightly to her chest, both of them shivering despite the desert heat rising around them. She was 35 years old, with deep lines etched around her eyes, not from age, but from years of waiting: waiting for her asylum claim to be processed in Guatemala, for her brother’s remittances from Houston to arrive, for the violence in her town to stop.

Border Patrol picked them up near Nogales. Mariela had practiced sharing what happened to her: how she had fled after refusing to pay the gang tax that tripled when they learned she was receiving dollars from the north. She asked for asylum then and there, clutching Isabela as a translator fumbled her words in a language she had never spoken.