BRIANNA NOFIL: The Case at Krome: Conditions and Controversies at U.S. Immigration Detention Centers
Brianna Nofil, Trinity Class of 2012, is double majoring in History and Public Policy Studies, with a minor in Education. While at Duke she has studied abroad in Oxford, Venice, and Glasgow and has taught English in rural Poland. She plays in the Duke University Marching Band and works in Creative Services at The Chronicle. She is interested in the ethical and political issues surrounding immigration detention and will be writing her senior thesis on the topic.
The Case at Krome: Conditions and Controversies at U.S. Immigration Detention Centers by Brianna Nofil
On October 28, 2004, Joseph Dantica and his son, Maxo, boarded a plane from Haiti to Miami, Florida. Dantica, an 81-year-old minister, was shaken, having just endured several days of politically-fueled riots and raids in his impoverished Haitian community. The day before he left for the United States, Haitian gang leaders confronted him, accusing him of cooperating with the police and demanding payment for gang members’ funerals; Dantica decided he had no choice but to flee his homeland. Upon arriving at Miami International Airport, Dantica misunderstood officials’ questioning and told them that he sought asylum in the United States. While he had the proper visa to enter the country as a tourist and stay with his American brothers, he did not have the documentation to support his accidental request for asylum; the elderly man was swiftly sent to Krome Service Processing Center, a facility for immigrant detention located on the edge of the Florida Everglades…. more