ICE Extra-Stretch
7th March 2024
On 18th January Riordan was released from the halfway house to go back to his wife and five children, in the suburbs of Denver. After a couple of weeks back at home he received a call that he needed to go back to the halfway-house. He wasn’t told what this was for but of course he knew it was a necessity to comply. The suspicion was that he was due to be deported. Why the US government could not have the decency to let him know what was occurring beggars belief but is in keeping with the lack of care the leviathan has shown towards its citizens, in this case Riordan’s wife and children. I can only imagine the torment they would feel after hearing from him via telephone, after his incarceration back at the halfway-house, and telling them that he was being deported and would never again be allowed to set foot in the United States. During his 4+ years’ prior incarceration, he was at no point less than a thousand miles away by road from them. This made it onerous indeed for his family to visit him and it became impossible after the initial visit, due to financial, educational, and employment constraints, in other words, it could not be afforded. That six people, other than Riordan, have been punished in this manner is dispiriting in the extreme.
Now Riordan is in one of the infamous ICE detention centres:
He has been here for the last month awaiting a hearing which took place on 4th March. Subsequent to this he now has his final deportation order. One would think then that the plane ticket could be purchased and Riordan would be aboard in a day or two, back to the UK. Yet, the fortress of bureaucracy “needs” one to two months or more to perform this task. Not only is there the very real fear of something dire happening, only last week did Riordan tell me of a violent altercation between others in the room, but also I can only imagine how Riordan is suffering from the psychic wound caused by this recent rupture together with the despair of spending perhaps two months or so in such a bereft environment. The UK Consulate state there is no way they can influence the process in order to expedite it or make it more comfortable.
Riordan says this is the worst location yet and it is entirely extra to his sentence, which he has completed. From what I hear in the few minutes I get to speak with him on the crackly line (the call itself often gets announced by a recorded message in some exotic language) it is place of great sorrow, despair and violence with next to nothing by way of personal space, natural light or reading material.