New hope for local detainee
One of a number of valley residents hauled off by U.S. Immigrations Customs Enforcement has reason to smile this week, even if he is locked away in a cramped detention facility above Colorado Springs.
A federal judge has ordered the case of Henry Gama, a well-liked resident and waiter in Glenwood Springs, to be reopened on the grounds that worsening conditions in Gama’s home country of Zimbabwe have complicated his deportation.
Even before the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s contested presidential election in March, Gama claimed his life will be in danger if he is forced to return. His brother purportedly was confronted by armed agents of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe who were looking for him at his mother’s funeral. Gama says his participation in a movement that opposed President Mugabe has made him a target of political retribution, according to federal court documents.
But Gama’s request for political asylum has never been heard by the court. That is because Gama, who moved to the United States in 2000 on an education visa, let his documentation expire. At one point he missed a court date. In 2004, he applied to stay in the country, but it was too late. His case was ordered closed in 2006.
Now, however, after several appeals, Gama’s attorney, Mark Barr, persuaded the court to take a fresh look at his case in light of the violence that has gripped Zimbabwe and killed off many of President Mugabe’s detractors.
“The case has been reopened for the first time since we started this process, and this is the first time Henry was informed he has the right to go back to a judge and tell his asylum story,” Barr said Wednesday. “It’s taken two years and eight months of detention to get back to the point where he was when he missed his court date.”
Gama and his lawyer, through mere happenstance, learned this week that a judge had ordered his case reopened. Curiously, the order came down April 15, but for whatever reason they were never notified.
“It angers me to no end that we weren’t notified of the decision when it was issued, meaning an extra three weeks in jail for Henry. However, I’m trying to channel that anger right now into securing his release as quickly as possible,” said Barr. “It wasn’t done intentionally, so now I’m just trying to focus on the good news.”
Gama, who is imprisoned in Teller County in the mountains above Colorado Springs, is scheduled to go before a judge May 15 to learn how much it will cost to bond out of the facility.
Before his incarceration in Teller County, Gama was in the state’s central U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora. While the food and conditions were bad there, Barr said, they are even worse in Teller County, where Henry and other detainees were transported due to overcrowding in Aurora. Now, he said, Gama tells him the food has deteriorated from prison-grade to worse, and two-person cells are crammed with three people in them. Telephone access is more restricted, and there is no outdoor recreation area, as there is in Aurora.
“They shipped him off up to the mountains. He said it’s much worse there, which I can’t imagine, because Aurora is no picnic,” said Barr.
The federal government has increased its funding for immigration enforcement since the inception of the Homeland Security Department. As a result, dozens of residents in the Roaring Fork Valley who came from England, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and beyond have found themselves fighting to stay here.
hoop@aspendailynews.com
