Samilia
Samilia Anthony migrated to the United States in the Seventies with her brother, Samuel, to reunite with her parents who migrated ahead of their children. They became lawful permanent residents shortly afterward. Her brother struggled with addiction in his early twenties, and ended up serving time for drug-related offenses. After completing his sentence, Samuel changed the course of his life, found steady work, and reconnected with his daughter. However, in 2019, ICE detained him without any notice and deported him to Sierra Leone. Samilia remains a fierce and loyal supporter of Samuel’s and hopes he can return to their life in the United States.
Note: interview has been lightly edited for readability.
Interviewer 0:00
So just to get started, do you want to please tell us your full name, today's date, and the location where you are?
Samilia 0:19
Okay. Good morning, my name is Samilia Anthony, it is April 9th, 2021 at 9:44 am. I am currently located in Washington, DC.
Interviewer 0:30
Great. And can you tell us a little bit about how you came to know about this project or about the Immigrant Defense Project, our organization?
Samilia 0:40
Yes, um, I came to know about your program through Sara who works for… oh, uh, now I’m drawing a total blank. *laughs*
Interviewer 0:57
The Rapid Defense Network?
Samilia 0:58
Yeah, Rapid Defense, yes, program. Yes, um, she assisted, her organization assisted me last year as Sam was in a process, my brother was in a process of being deported. And they were able to get a stay until we could kind of try to work out things, so it wasn’t such a shock. It gave us time to kind of strategize and, even though we weren’t successful, it gave us six months to try to work on things and just put things in place, to assist him on the other end. So their company, or their organization was very, very helpful in assisting us, and she introduced me to you guys.
Interviewer 1:38
Great, and we'll definitely get into, you know, more of Sam's case, and what has happened. But to start off, we would like to know a little bit about your memories of your experience coming to this country with Sam. The reasons why you and your family came here, and what that experience was like of moving to the United States and growing up here.
Samilia 2:00
Okay, um, you know the memories I guess as a child, you just kind of follow what your parents’ desires and wants for you are. We moved into the US, so we came to the U.S. August 8, 1978. At that time I was 8 years old, Sam was 6 years old. Our parents had left, my mom left in March, 1973. At the time Sam was 8 months old, and I was a little over two years old. My dad had left previously, so he probably left somewhere in ‘72. And we had one interaction with them prior, which was we visited in 1976 with my grandmother, and then we went back, and then we finally made a permanent move in August of 1978. Um, how was it coming here? Oh, I don’t even think I could remember. You know, as a child, you just do as your parents say. And, I will be honest, for some reason, I don’t have a lot of memories of back home. You know, one of the major things I remember was in 1978, in November there was a major snowstorm in DC. And, we got to play in snow, that was my first experience with snow. Didn’t know it existed or what it was, so you know, it wasn’t anything where I gave it much thought-- we just moved here. To be with our parents.
Interviewer 3:38
Got it. And how did that sense of home, or belonging, or community evolve over time?
Samilia 3:48
Um, I think it was probably difficult because my parents had this idea of raising us as if we were in Africa, but we lived in the US. So, you know, the things that the kids were doing, like they would go outside to play, those are the things that were totally forbidden by my parents, cuz in their mind, they still were doing the cultural thing of Africa. And because, in their mind America wasn’t necessarily the safest place, we were pretty much left alone. So me and Sam spent a lot of time, just together in the house. Um, when we were old enough to get back and forth to school on our own, it was always like “You stay together.” And they always had, for some strange reason, they would have friends who would notice us on the buses. And I don’t know if at that time, there was a small concentration of Sierra Leoneans who lived in a certain area, so we were always interacting with them quite accidentally, unbeknownst to us. Um, so, I mean it was hard because you didn’t know what America was because you were kind of isolated, and you certainly weren’t in Africa long enough to really establish a ground foot and to just say, “Ok, this is how the life was in Africa,” so I always felt like we never got a chance to really engage in any one country. You know, we weren’t truly Sierra Leoneans, but we truly weren’t Americans, either. We were just, just in the middle, you know trying to survive.
Interviewer 5:11
Yeah. And did that feeling being in between evolve over time, as you spent more time here, and got a better sense of your identity? Or was that always something that was sort of something you struggled with?
Samilia 5:28
No, I think it’s something that we always struggled with because, you know, during those times especially, being from Africa wasn’t something that was praised and embraced, especially in the Black community. So, it was more so, you were just an outcast. And then you couldn't really grab onto Africa because, you know, when we first came, we came under my parents’ student visa; but those eventually expired. So then, you were also in this cocoon where you couldn't really share your situation, you couldn't say too much, so you kept kind of quiet. So I dont think we ever embraced America because again you don't know when at any given time, you know when you would have to leave. And you didn’t like, I mean, no one said it to you, but you just kind of knew based on a sense of secrecy, a sense of how you conducted yourself. And your parents would always say, you know “Don’t do this because, you know, you don’t know this,” “You can’t bring friends in the house because you don’t want them to know your situation.” It wasn’t an open life where you could just live it. You know, you were always just on the cusp of what’s next.
Interviewer 6:37
Yeah. And do you remember specifically having any conversations, or any sort of understanding about that immigration status being in limbo, or the possibility of being deported back to Sierra Leone? Was that something that you had an awareness of at a young age?
Samilia 6:49
I mean I definitely think I had an awareness of We didn’t belong here. It wasn’t so much as “you’ll be deported,” I don’t think I knew the ramifications at a young age. I probably didn’t know till later on, when I think I was in high school, when it came time to, “You couldn’t qualify for student loans because you’re not a US citizen.” You know, you couldn’t do anything. Like, in terms of college, you know you could try to get a scholarship, but you couldn’t access any of the programs. And I think that’s when it really hit me-- you couldn’t apply for Pell Grants, there was nothing you could do to qualify for any, because you weren’t a US citizen. You know, I think when I was young, I knew there was something there, but I didn’t know to what extent it was.
Interviewer 7:39
Yeah. And do you remember having conversations with Sam about this, you know, maybe as it pertained to your schooling? Or was this something that you all talked about, or was it all kind of swept under the rug, like you said?
Samilia 7:46
I think, my parents probably had more conversations with him as he grew older and just being out in the world at a young age, and they were very clear that like, “You’re not from here.” And so I definitely think for him, they probably had more of a conversation, but not a direct conversation of what would happen. It was just mainly, “You’re not American, so why are you acting like an American,” kind of. And I think, because he was so young, he probably grasped being an American more than I did. I think I was just kind of like, “Ok, I understand that this isn’t home, but that isn’t really home either,” by virtue of distance, um, and I think for him the adjustment was probably harder because he grew up without his parents up to 6 years of age. I mean, for me, I guess I had them for about two years so, those formative years made a difference. And then, two years after we came here my parents had another child, so that I guess added to his distance. Like, “Aw, I thought you were gonna focus on me now, but now you have another kid.” And then, being in the Africa mentality, we became instant babysitters. *laughs* At a young age, cuz my parents both worked two jobs. So, we became kind of that community caregiver situation. And, him living, trying to live the American life it was just like, you know I don’t have to do this. And his parents are like, no you have to do this because I told you so. And he’s just like, “No, my friends said…” and duh duh duh duh. My parents were very clear: “No, those are Americans and you’re not an American.” And I think we were told enough that we weren’t American. But we also didn’t know the other country, so we also couldn’t say we were Sierra Leoneans, you know.
Interviewer 9:41
Right. Do you remember sort of what, what it was that Sam said or did that was sort of his attempt at becoming more American? I mean, it sounds like maybe, wanting to act like the people around him, or sort of wanting to like resist his parents’, your parents’, expectations.
Samilia 9:51
Yeah, I think mostly, everything he did in terms of being, just integrated himself. I think I was more turned into myself, um, he was just out with, you know he had friends, he was socializing. He wanted to go over to his friend’s house. You know I kind of knew early on and I didn’t make the request, but for him it was always a request, Oh I wanna go out and play with so and so. And for me, I was quite happy to read a book or watch a TV show. But he wanted to interact, and I think early on he felt like, he was young he was 6 when he first came. So, he wanted to interact with these new friends that he had found, you know. And that meant, socially being out with them. Whether it’s just being outside riding his bike or, wanting to go visit them at their home, those kinds of things. Or, maybe adopting some of their behavior at school, and a lot of that was in a class clown-like attitude. So he embraced all of that.
Interviewer 11:06
Yeah, and do you remember when his first interactions with the police or with law enforcement started to happen, what was going on around that time?
Samiia 11:09
Um, strangely enough, Sam really liked law enforcement. At one point he wanted to be a police. I remember one of his first interactions with them was, there was a People’s Drugs on 14th St. And one of his friends had stolen something, this was in elementary school. And he went to the police officer to go tell on the guy, on his young friend, that the guy had stolen something from the CVS. I remember his first interaction was with the law enforcement, You know, at that time, there was this program called “Officer Friendly” in DC Public School, and you know, I think he really embraced it. And at one time, looked at himself and um, wanted to be a police officer. Oh, he kind of just liked the look of it-- I don’t know if it was the uniform or just uh, the power, but yeah he definitely embraced the idea of being a police officer at a young age.
Interviewer 12:03
And then from there where did his trouble begin with law enforcement—when the tables maybe turned?
Samilia 12:09
I think a lot of it was, I think, believe it or not, I think it’s just in school. My dad was a substitute teacher at, unfortunately, at our school that we went to. And I think, and my dad was kind of like a hard disciplinarian. So, the friends and the other people in the school or in the classes would kind of be like, “Your dad is this, your dad is, you know, he’s mean,” and I think my brother really didn’t like that interaction and he felt like he had to be responsible, or basically take the brunt of the dissatisfaction with my dad. He absorbed a lot of it from the friends and other classmates. And he just started acting out and, you know, he got punished quite a bit. And African punishment-- I don’t know if you ever hear of these things called like “Push Pin” or it was a physical, it was a physical punishment. You know you would have to like face the wall with your hands up and you’re, kind of like um, not a squat but, you kind of had your hands up and put your knee-- leg up and just stood there for hours. And then there were times he definitely got beaten a lot because he was very rebellious because he just felt like, for him, “I’m just a normal child in America.” He never quite conceptualized that no, you don’t really belong here. And my parents at one time talked about going back, so that was something their whole circle talked about. America was, “Ok, we came here, we get our degrees, we got our education, and then we head back.” And it was that constant planning, but like most immigrants, you could never save enough to really move and show that you’d been in America because bills from this country were always exhausting you. So it was never a situation where it was like “Ok, we got good grips, we got good savings, and we can really leave now,” you know.
Interviewer 14:14
Do you- yeah, yeah, go for it.
Interviewer 2 14:14
Could I ask a quick question? It seems like you had a very different perspective than Sam about, you just said you knew you really didn't belong in America. How did that feel for you to have this feeling of I don't really belong here? And especially, I know you mentioned in high school, when you saw that, it hit you, and you didn't have the same college opportunities, What did that feel like?
Samilia 14:29
You know honestly, I am more of a, I guess, I take it as this is what it is. I don’t think I internalized it, I knew there was other ways for me, one of things I do is I travel a lot, and I look at, you know I’ve been to six continents cuz I knew that this necessarily wasn’t the place, I mean this is where I lived. But, I grew up in an African household so I knew I was different. But I also knew that Africa, Sierra Leone, was not my home in a sense that I really, I left at 8. And my memories of that, literally, you ask me, all I remember was my grandmother’s house, and I remember what school I went to. But, I didn’t have any, I didn’t have any attachments over there. And in America also, I felt like I didn’t have any attachments; I always felt like I could leave at any time, you know. So I think, maybe that’s my trauma and that’s how I’ve absorbed it, the idea that I can walk away from either country at any time.
Interviewer 15:45
I guess once Sam had arrests or convictions, more of the serious trouble began…do you remember ever having a conversation about the possibility that he might be deported back to Sierra Leone and what that was like?
Samilia 16:02
Yeah, I mean at that age, at that point I was old enough to recognize it. I couldn’t tell him what it was like because I had been to-- at 18, not 18, um… yeah, it might’ve been at 18, yeah 1986, Ronald Reagan was President and he put together this program, the Amnesty Program. And if you had been in the US a certain amount of years, and you were legally paying taxes, you had no legal issues, you could apply for a green card. My parents, or my mom, one of her friends had done it. So she talked to my dad, my dad insisted that he wasn’t gonna do it, that it might’ve been a trap or whatever. So she took me and Sam and we went and we did the application, separately from him. That just tells you the disconnect, how my father felt and you know. So we went with my mom and we did get to, um, the green card status. And I think it was 1989 we got it, at that point, I was 19. So we knew we weren’t US citizens definitely and at that point, I think Sam kind of, I mean knew but I don’t think he really understood what it meant because he was never interactive, whereas like I would kind of try to learn about Sierra Leone and everything, he had no interest. He didn’t really, he didn’t speak the language-- neither did I but I understood it better-- and he just, you know he was truly American. Everything about him was American, um, so at that point, I think I knew enough to say to him, “Look dude, this, ya know, should you have any problems”-- and maybe I might not have said in that way because, I myself probably didn’t know the ramifications of if you got in trouble they could deport you, so I probably I just would always say that, “You know you’re not an American,” and I think that was it. I don’t think I sat and said to him, “Look, these are the ramifications.” I mean I do think when he got in trouble at 18 or 19, which I was probably 21 then, my mom did say something about she wanted to send him back home to Africa. And, to kind of keep him grounded, and my thing at that point is, “Well he’s an adult now,” cuz I think at this point he’s like 18, 19. I was like, You just can’t send him back, you know? And of course yeah, that’s what I’m thinking and believe it or not, my mom was always said, “Well, it’s your fault you, I wanted to send him back and you said no”... I’m a child myself! So I don’t control that and, he was an adult, what’re you gonna do, get him on a plane? Like, my thought was just always being logical and I guess in their mind, they still operated on “you’re my child and I can tell you what to do.” And I guess if you’re in Africa, that would, you know in Sierra Leone, that definitely would transpire but, being, knowing what I knew about America, it wasn’t like you just marched him to the airport and said “Here you go, get on a plane,” you know. So, you know. I mean I knew enough for the rules of America, or just the ways of America that I knew certain things could not just transpire. Yeah.
“If lawmakers were really interested in reforming and looking at just how the whole system operated that would be a much [more] just society than to just incarcerate a person for a long length of time and then tell them, Hey, I’m gonna give you a second banishment and deport you from the only place you know.”
Interviewer 19:12
Sure. And do you remember when Sam's first interaction with ICE, or I guess back then INS, what that, what that interaction looked like?
Samilia 19:26
Well, I don’t think, um, we didn’t, his first interaction with INS was very late. Um, because I believe they all assumed, you know, all the paperwork and everything, because he had been in America, that he was a US citizen. It was not until he was actually arrested and had time to serve that the issue came up, that he was not a US citizen. And then, you know, ICE became, or INS became an issue. And that was why I, you know, I think he held onto the argument that he was never given his due process and stated that should he be convicted or if he plead that he would, at that point, be subject to deportation. Because I don’t think anyone realized back then, they really weren’t as, um, as focused, or you know, I don’t know how they kind of figured out, it was only later on through the paperwork that they realized, “Hey, he’s not a US citizen so we have to put an ICE detention on him.”
Interviewer 20:38
Sure.
Samilia 20:40
So I don’t believe anyone knew in legal cases early on. And we did try to look into the idea of not giving due process, and I don’t think we were successful in that avenue in trying to establish that fact as well.
Interviewer 20:58
And what do you think about that system of punishment, not only, you know, serving time for whatever it is that you're accused of doing, but then also facing the possibility of permanent banishment or exile from the place that you've come to call home?
Samilia 21:18
Um, well definitely cuz it’s very personal, I definitely think it’s cruel. I definitely think a better solution would’ve been once you recognize they weren’t US citizen then you expedited the idea of, uh, deportation then as opposed to waiting til after. I mean if you look at US legal system and the amount of money they spend incarcerating person, I mean you could definitely save a lot of money if you just instantly deported them and say: Ok, you have to go and your banishment is whatever time you would’ve served in US jail, you’re not allowed to come to the US for that amount of time. I think if lawmakers were really interested in reforming and looking at just how the whole system operated that would be a, a much just society than to just incarcerate a person for a long length of time and then tell them, Hey, I’m gonna give you a second banishment and deport you from the only place you know, you know? Cuz if you look at, I mean if you spend all this time in jail, when you are transferred, what financial- I mean like what kind of life can you have? You know, you go from jail to being deported to a country you know nothing about. That is just definitely doomed for failure, I don’t see anything positive coming out of a situation like that.
Interviewer 22:37
Yeah. So based on your experience of watching Sam navigate these systems…someone who we've worked with and who has participated in this project, said to us that, “you know, the system never lets you go.” And they asked this sort of rhetorical question, “how much punishment does one person need...what does this system actually accomplish?” And so I'm just wondering what you think of that question?
“That is definitely not a rehabilitation system, you just keep somebody locked up and then you deport them, there’s no way for rehabilitation.”
Samilia 23:11
I mean I definitely agree, um, you know the US system quote-unquote is about um, re- um, what do they say, re-, uh, god I lost the words. Not repatriate, but they want to make you better, better citizens, the whole purpose of-
Interviewer 23:27
Like re-rehabilitation? Right. Hmm.
Samilia
-they want to rehabilitate you. But, that is definitely not a rehabilitation system, you just keep somebody locked up and then you deport them, there’s no way for rehabilitation. If anything, the trauma that they served, I mean going to jail is traumatic enough so you spend whatever years just in trauma and you never get any kind of- as a US citizen another thing we found out is, cuz Sam had attended college for two years prior, you don’t get access to any of the programs for schooling, you don’t get access to a lot of psychological programs, so you have no access to anything. They are really just warehousing you until they can get rid of you. And you know, a much much just and humane system would be: just let the person go then and let them, at least if at a younger age, they can learn early the systems of the new countries they’ve been exported to, or repatriated to. Whereas if you send them at an older age, what is a 50 year old person gonna do in a new country? Especially a country where the average age is 25 where, you know it’s a young person’s country. You’re doomed for failure and you’re just doomed to have constant trauma that is never solved. And you’re definitely not rehabilitated at that point.
Interviewer 24:49
Right. And in Sam's case, can you walk us through a little bit of what happened once he was in custody? They flagged that he had this ICE detainer, or the INS at the time…
Samilia 25:06
Yeah, and when he, when he was locked up, again liked I said it wasn’t til later, cuz he started taking some classes or some programs. And then they realized that he was not a US citizen so they automatically put a stop to that so he had no access to certain programs anymore. And pretty much he just stayed in jail until he was released, and at the time he was released, ICE had a detainer on him, so he was instantly transferred to ICE, um, custody where he served 2 years, I think, it was about 2 years. He served it in ICE custody. During that period we, um, filed a CAT, which was um, oo, something about torture and you know being that it would be difficult for him to go back to his home country, seeing as he didn’t know his home country. And at that point, Sierra Leone had just come out a ten-year civil war that totally devastated the country. So, if at that point, he definitely, um, the situation would’ve been even graver than it was now in sending him to a country that had just exited a ten-year war where there was still hotspots. And I think the country, Sierra Leone at that time realized that, and did not allow the US to deport people, especially the ones that they didn’t have for documentation. You know, Sam had been here since he was 6; at this point when he was released he was probably 38? So, you know, finding documentation, you know we had no passport, we had nothing. It was just the embassy word against us, saying Ok you’re from here, we’ll take you back. So at that time the embassy was, you know had enough foresight to say, “Look, we got enough problems, we don’t need any returnees, that would not be in any way humane.” So, they did not allow any deportation. We filed a CAT process, um, which was put together by me, my other brother, Chanel, and a friend of his who was an attorney helped us put it together. The only thing is we needed an attorney to kinda submit everything, and he knew even less than we knew sadly enough. Um, and initially the CAT was approved. And then a couple of months later, unbeknownst to us, they appealed it and then it was denied. And the attorney we had, I don’t know whether they didn’t reach out to him, or he just didn’t reach back out to us, we weren’t aware that it was denied until later on when, um, we kind of thought that, Ok we’re fine. The situation came back up again as to Ok, we, you now have another detainer, but this time it was a requirement that– um, oh! What they did is they released him, um May 19th, 2012, they released him with the idea that he had to go to INS, or ICE at that point, and report. And he was given um, he had probation and ICE just kept track of him and he had to go twice a year to report to ICE. And they were, they allowed him to have a work visa, so he was able to work through the process. And it kept, pretty much that was the situation until Donald Trump became president in 2017. And when he was called into, um his normal twice-a-year visit, they decided to put an ankle bracelet on him and change his visits to every Wednesday and a home visit every Friday. Which greatly did interfere with his work abilities.
Interviewer 28:51
Yeah, can you tell us a little bit more about that experience of being on the ankle monitor, and how it interfered? You mentioned having to go there every Wednesday, and then having to stay home waiting for the visit every Friday. What that experience was like?
Samilia 29:11
Well, I mean it was definitely disheartening for Sam and I think he kind of sensed more than we did even– cuz we just feel like, Ok we’ll have an attorney, we’ll work on it– so I think we believed more in the system than he did, he instantaneously knew that this was not good for him. We realized another step which was applying for U visa– we attained an attorney and unfortunately, I think we had retained the attorney maybe almost a year before that, but for some reason she was not very proactive at getting it done, but once this monitor and the whole Trump thing came in the thing then we kind of just started pushing on her, to basically get something done. Unbeknownst to us she was telling us that she was having a problem getting the U visa certification done, um but because I knew, I’d been in DC a while and I knew quite a bit of people in DC, I had her send me the documents and I was able to walk it through with someone who was a friend who knew Chief Newsham at the time, and I believe you needed the Chief of Police sign-off on the paperwork. So we were able to actually get that done quite quickly once she told us what the problem was. So she was actually quite surprised we got it done, so we got that done and the ball started moving. But the ball did not move fast enough, um while she was working on the paperwork, which was July 31st, 2019, he went in for his scheduled check-up, and they just detained him. And we were in the process of completing the application, I had literally just flew in, I was out of town, I flew in on the 30th and on the 31st, I got a call, and it was one of those funny calls that I’m always in tuned, after Sam being in jail I’m in tune with this call. So I instantly called his cellphone and it rang, so I assumed Ok, maybe he’s just busy cuz it rang constantly. My thought was “Ok, if it had gone straight to voicemail then that would’ve been some, some signs that something was definitely off.” But the phone rang so, I just assumed everything was ok. Later on in the afternoon, I get another phone call this time I was able to answer, and it was him. He was calling from Alexandria saying he’s been detained and they’re looking to deport him. And, I went straight to the embassy and talked to them to see what they had done. And of course, they denied it in the beginning and said “No, we didn’t have anything,” and then I think I just put enough pressure on them, one of the ladies pulled me aside and she said, you know, she showed me a picture of Sam she said “Is this your brother?” And I said yes, she said well yeah, um, we, we signed off on some paperwork. And I just said, Well can you talk to the people and you know what, what’s the situation? And her situation to me was, Have you thought about moving him to another city? *chuckles* And I was like, Well no, he’s actually in detention, you facilitated it so no, that’s not an option. Apparently, they had made a phone call at one of his visits, where he spoke to them and they were like, Well… I think, I don’t know what transpired in the conversation but obviously, it was a conversation where they could say, Well, his country spoke to him and they Ok’d everything. And I know how Sam is, so there would’ve been no way he would have acquiesced to “Oh yes I’m from Sierra Leone” and whatever, it’s like you have to prove it. Show me some documents and, you know, the whole time INS had said to him, Provide us a passport, provide us a passport and we could let you go. And he’s just like, Well if I had one I would give you a passport, but I don’t have one, ya know, and you know at that time my parents had nothing and they weren’t really as involved. I have to say, it was a situation where it was kind of me and him who dealt with a lot of his immigration stuff. Neither one of my parents were really that involved in the situation. Um, but anyway, they took custody of him on July 31st, 2019. I in turn call the attorney. And they transferred him, after a day or two they transferred him out, I want to say Louisiana or somewhere, I just can’t remember, just everything happened so rapidly. Basically, they had an agenda. In two weeks they literally were about to have him on a plane, it was the day before, or maybe, yeah maybe the day before the attorney, Fabien, um, contacted Farrah and Greg, at National Defense Fund, and they were able to put together a brief and I had to get an attorney on this end who could walk everything through, and that was a Monday, oh, I think maybe it was Sunday, and then Monday they turned everything in. Tuesday, a plane was ready to fly Sam and a couple of other immigrants, they were gonna do a whole, you know, I guess a course to West Africa and he was scheduled to be on the plane. But at 7 o’clock the Monday, we got a stay from the courts basically said, don’t put him on a plane we need to work out some situation and that’s when I...
Interviewer 34:44
Feel free to take a break. You can turn off your video or, sorry, mute your audio if you want to just take a little breather.
Samilia 35:00
Ok, uh-huh.
*Samilia takes a step back from the interview at this point, recording ends, restarts*
“I didn’t realize that the the Trump’s administration’s motives was basically to deport as many people from the African, the Black and brown regions as possible. The numbers in terms of deporting people to Europe or any European Air countries were in very small, but the majority seemed to have been focused on brown and Black people and people of color at that time.”
Samilia 0:00
… if I’d known because at this point, I've been flying to Africa maybe once a year to try to get reacquainted.get to reacquainted with Sierra Leone. And so I had some friends on the ground that I felt I could trust who I think could, kind of look after him, because no one, my dad wasn’t there, nobody was there who could accept him and give him place to stay or take care of him. I knew someone who was able to help me narrow the deputy ambassador, I met her the year prior through my visits. So I asked her, I gave her a call, and see what information she could give me and she told me was, you know, confidential, but she was able to help me out with some things that I needed to know that just kind of help it put things in place. Luckily, we got the stay, so he didn't end up getting on a plane, the plane did leave. And when I heard how they brought them, it was just, it was unbelievable. They actually had them shackled. And when they took them off, they literally bought them out of the plane in shackles as if they were going somewhere. And pretty much that's how they executed all the jobs that they did, which was very inhumane. And so I was glad for him mentally, and to escape any more trauma that he didn't have to go through that process. So for the next six months, we went back and forth in applying for different stays that we could or whatever we felt, and National Defense felt, with the attorney that we could use in favor. Finally in, in December, I think we received that they had denied his U visa application. And the denial was, you know, we had met, everyone thought that we had met all the requirement that it was basically just a very subjective, no, based on at this time, I didn't realize that the Trump's administration's motives was basically to deport as many people from the African, the Black and brown regions as possible. The numbers in terms of deporting people to Europe or any European Air countries were in very small, but the majority seemed to have been focused on brown and Black people and people of color at that time. And which made Sam a major target. So they denied the U visa. And we had nothing else and we just kind of sat and waited. I received a call from him on December 13th, it was a Saturday- no I'm sorry, I just said I received a call from December 12, it was a Friday because I was in the hospital doctor's office with my mom. And he called and he said that they are at this point they had transferred him to Farmville. I had went to see him in Thanksgiving Day of that year of 2019. And we talked and just tried to prepare for the situation. On December 12, he called me saying they will transfer him today at four, they were going to fly him out, with, I mean, nothing. I called and said, Can we get him some clothes, can we get him anything? They said Absolutely not, and I knew he was going through Dulles, and I kind of reached out there to see, was it worth, I called the attorney to say Was it worth it going out there? And he said, You have no access to him so there would be no point, you couldn't get him anything… reached out to someone who also worked for, I think the Marshal Service at INS that we knew. He looked it up and he said, Yes, he’s scheduled to go out, you know, at this flight and there's just no access to him. So on the 13th, I get a call from someone I didn't know and who put Sam on the phone. He was then in Morocco, they had pretty much flown him, he had flown by himself. They put him on a plane. And they'd left his documents with the Moroccan I guess, people, the flight attendants. And so when they got to Morocco, basically he had to stay in a waiting area. And he had, they had his documents. And they told him, I think the flight was like another 12 or 13 hours before the next flight to Freetown,so he flew out on his own to Freetown and they just, you know, put his documents in. And then when he got to Freetown, luckily because he flew as an individual, he didn't have to deal with the situation; normally what happens is when you’re repatriated, and I guess sort of like the FBI, sort of kind of Sierra Leone, which is called CIT, will take possession of you and maybe put you in holding and for a while till they kind of get more information from you. But because he flew individually, they, you know, he was just able to just talk his way out of it and they just kind of let him out. At this point, I had known enough, I had enough notice where I could get somebody on the ground. And, you know, have someone pay for a ticket for him. Because the way you find Freetown, you fly to an island, and to get to the mainland, you needed to take a boat or a ferry or something. And um, I was able to get someone to get a ticket and get him. No, no, no, I, yeah, they bought him a ticket. No, I'm sorry, they didn't– he had, believe it or not, they send you with whatever money you have on you. Like, if you have $5, that is all you get. And luckily, I think I just sent him some money prior. So he had about $180 on him. And he was able to buy a ticket, which is like $40 to get to the mainland, and then somebody picked him up from there. And pretty much that's kind of way he’s been ever since you know. So.
And we, I flew down... So he got to Freetown on December 15th. I had to take care of some things on this end, so I did not fly out till December 26th. But I had a cousin who lived in Senegal. I had her fly out to kind of meet him, you know, so she got there, maybe two or three days after he got there to kind of have some continuum of people he knew and situations. And she was able to kind of handle stuff until I got there on December 26. And I stayed on the ground for about a month and a half to just acclimate him to situations and you know, just make sure everything was okay. And that's pretty much it. And you know, he's been there. Sierra Leone is not a place where you just get up and go get a job. It's, you know, as most African countries, entrepreneurship is big, but in order for you to be an entrepreneur, you have to understand the system. Sam had no idea. He left Sierra Leone when he was six years old. As much as he might have understood the streets of DC, it's very different… it's just different. And I think emotionally, you know, he contemplated suicide, because…
*takes a break to catch breath*
Interviewer 7:37
Take your time.
Samilia 8:18
He definitely contemplated suicide, because he just felt like, you know, he had just, you know, Everything that I know, all the people I know, now, um, you know, just not in a position to be around. And he just felt like, he was causing more pain than he was giving joy. But, you know, we were able to get through that. And, you know, I explained that it's not about living in America that gives you life. It's about just living your life, wherever that is. And I think he kind of eventually came to terms with, you know, the situation. And so that's pretty much where it's been at. And you know, he's kind of making his way. He definitely doesn't have a job there. I provide him financial assistance, every month. And everyone always says to me, Oh, did he find a job yet? And I tried to explain that, I guess it's possible. But Sierra Leone is really not that kind of country. You don't just go apply for a job. It's a very patriarchal, so who-you-know kind of system. Corruption is, of course, rampant. So of course, depending on who's in politics– and we've never been a political family– depending on who's in politics, that group is who gets the majority of the jobs and people want to know people in that. I mean, it's no different than the US, when administrations change over anyone who's associated with the Democrats gets the job, or whoever is in power at that time. They're able to work as lobbyists, or get jobs that will give them attention to the administration and get peoples’ desires or interests kind of taken care of, based on the knowledge of who they know. Well, we knew no one. And so therefore, we weren't in a situation that was like, Okay, we can get you a job here. So he's pretty much I mean, I guess, I think a lot of the, prior to Sam going, he works, he's always working two or three jobs since coming from jail. And, you know, he always stays very busy. And I think one of the biggest issue for him is just the span of time where there's a lot of nothingness. There's nothing to do, certainly, only so much volunteer you can do, only so much walking around. And initially, we started I, I introduced him to this farming cooperative that he was working with and volunteering with. But as with everything with Africa, it eventually returns to money. And of course, they look at him as like, Oh, you know, you're American, you have money. And he instantly realized, like, it was I mean, I initially, I think he gave because he felt so overwhelmed by the poverty, and he felt his situation was better. So he was giving, and, as always, in those third world country, and– it's not even that, in any country, poverty just does that. Once you give, the people realize, Oh, okay, I can get more. And they continue to reach out, continue to reach out, and want more and more and more, until you finally get to a point where you're like, Look, I don't have it to give like that, you know? But they will continue to ask because they just think your situation is better than their situation so any extra they can get from you is a blessing. So he kind of recognized that and kind of cut out, and Sam's personality’s very, he's, you know, he's a very giving person, but when he feels like he's been used and abused, he will just totally cut you off. And, you know, like even dealing with the attorney, he just felt she just took the money, like many other attorneys before her, and never really did anything, because they didn't really believe in him. Because he did, he used to call the attorney constantly and she wouldn't return his call. It was only when I got involved, that she would call back. And, you know, he felt very, like, you know, I guess just disrespected in that way. And the same thing in Africa. So when enough people or things happen, he just would cut off the relationship and move on. And so I've tried to explain to him that, unfortunately, people will be who they are. Now the question, what you have to do is step back, and you're giving, but his personality is very much like mine, you know, we tend to give and give. And then when you're, we're both Cancers, I don't know if that means anything, people always say that it's either here or there. And as a Cancer, I feel like I'm very giving until you just like burn me. And then it's like, that's it, I want nothing to do with you. I mean, I've learned how to kind of massage it through; but with him, that’s it, he just cuts you off. And I always say you never know, you might need that person again. But his belief is, I don't want to get to know them after what they have done. So he ended up cutting off his relationship with this farm cooperative. And they're interesting because I looked into doing some work with them, and I said, well send me a proposal and we could start something. I think it was a beehive we were going to do like some honey. So they sent me a proposal for $750,000. And I was like, *laughs* Do you understand what $750,000 is? So when I said oh, no, I can't do that, then next thing was, well, can you send us 5000? And I'm like, how do we go from 750,000 to 5000? So I was just like, Okay, you know what, I'm gonna take a step back and let's just, you know, revisit this relationship.
So then, I mean, after that he really hasn't done anything. I have sent, like I've always sent stuff back home, like will collect stuff from friends and even my old clothes. So I've sent that back, and even some books recently. There's a, there’s a group called Don Bosco, I don't know if you're familiar with them, but it's a Catholic order. And they have schools in Sierra Leone, they have a school and Silver Spring, actually in Maryland, in DC. And he, I had shipped some books and he was like, Is it okay to give the books to Don Bosco now I hadn't thought about it, but he came to me with the idea. And the books were just sitting there, I was like Yeah, you could donate it to them and you know, periodically I’ll send clothes and he'll give it out to people in a neighborhood or just anywhere that he feels, and some of it to churches. You know, one of the things I send back a lot is tennis shoes, you know, Americans, we don't tend to wear our shoes out, after, you know, we say 3000 miles on em, which for African that's just like a brand new shoes. So I do send out a lot of tennis shoes that I just tell him, you know, he can find whomever he thinks needs them, and he can give it to em. So he's done that. So, but pretty much that's, you know, that's it gets he wakes up, he goes around drives, I mean, I try not to ask too many questions, and just, you know, and that's pretty much it, you know?
Interviewer 15:31
Well thank you again for, you know, sharing the story, I know it's really hard to rehash some of these really painful moments, so I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and to share his story. I'm just wondering if you have any sort of final reflections that—maybe something that you have not yet mentioned—that comes to mind, about his case or the fight or, something that you want people who, maybe don't have this kind of experience to know about? About this system of punishment and deportation? Just kind of leaving it open-ended, if there's anything else you want to share?
Samilia 16:18
Well, I, you know, I find it very ironic that the US goes around to all these different countries and talking about humanitarian and human rights. And I would have to say, we were probably one of the biggest abuses of human rights, because we know better. It's a situation where, you know, better, you do better, you know, we feel like we can go and use our muscles and tell all these countries how to be and how to be more humane to their citizens or non-citizens. But the things that we do to people who've given to this country and are a part, I think, of the fabric of the country. And it's not just because– Americans are made of all the Europeans who came home in 1400s and started the US, it's made of all the people who have come since then who've added value to the country. And to be able to dispose of persons after forty years of being in the US– Sam had been in the US 43 years when he was deported. I think it is the highlight of what it is to be inhumane.
“Believe it or not, they send you with whatever money you have on you. Like, if you have $5, that is all you get.”
Interviewer 17:50
Yeah, I think that's very well said, and it's definitely, you know, a hypocritical system for, for the U.S. to sort of posture in any way as being a protector of human rights when obviously, we know, you know, the systems of policing and incarceration are worse here than anywhere else—and are really what makes up this country as a way of maintaining a certain social order. So I don't know if you have any other questions.
Interviewer 2 18:32
No, thank you so much for your time.
Samilia 18:34
Thank you guys for your assistance.