Chapter 6 Flashcards
(10 cards)
Why couldn’t Cowan and Castillo find the recently arrested Salvadorans in local jails?
The INS had secretly transferred them to El Centro, a remote detention center in Southern California, where most detainees were swiftly deported without hearings.
What conditions did detainees face at El Centro?
The facility was overcrowded and unsanitary, with limited shelter, abusive guards, inadequate medical care, and judges deporting people at a rate of 50 per hour.
How did Cowan and Castillo begin organizing legal support inside El Centro?
A former detainee smuggled out names and alien numbers of Salvadorans needing help; Cowan and Castillo used these to file G-28 forms and offer representation.
What tactic did the INS use to deport Salvadorans quickly without hearings?
They tricked detainees into signing English-language “voluntary departure” forms, often without interpretation or explanation, waiving their right to seek asylum.
What broader legal strategy did Cowan and Castillo adopt to stop deportations?
They filed mass asylum applications and appeals to buy time and prevent deportations, defining success as getting people out of custody, not necessarily winning asylum.
Why were asylum applications often denied despite the 1980 Refugee Act?
The State Department issued boilerplate denials claiming no “well-founded fear of persecution,” often based on sanitized, one-sided assessments of El Salvador.
Who was John Fife, and how did he get involved?
A Presbyterian pastor in Tucson, Fife began housing asylum seekers at his church and worked with Cowan and Castillo to help release Salvadorans from detention.
What role did James Corbett play in aiding Salvadorans?
Corbett, a Quaker rancher, helped transport Salvadorans across the border and worked to subvert the system by posing as a priest and filing asylum claims.
What made Corbett and Fife shift from legal advocacy to underground resistance?
After the INS began rejecting all asylum applications and detaining people they brought in, they realized the official process was failing and began a covert network.
What historical analogies inspired the idea of a “pro bono coyote” operation?
Corbett likened their effort to the Underground Railroad and the church’s failure during the Holocaust, arguing they couldn’t allow such atrocities on their border
