Press. voanews.com
Jose wears an
ankle monitor on his right leg. Caught crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, the
Honduran native was detained for about 17 months in an immigration facility,
first in Texas and then in New Jersey, where his bail was set at $20,000.
Jose, who asked
not to be identified by his real name, did not have the money. Usually the full
amount is required in illegal immigration cases because immigrants are
considered flight risks. His pro bono immigration lawyer could not help him
with the bond amount, but he told Jose about Libre by Nexus, a Virginia-based
company that helps detained immigrants pay bonds by fitting them with ankle
monitors.
Libre by Nexus
is able to give the bonding company financial guarantees so rather than the
full amount, the detainee pays a bond premium of typically 10 to 15 percent of
the face value of the bond to the bondsman.
Once the bond
payment is met, immigrants must still wait while their cases, usually requests
for asylum, make their way through the backlogged immigration courts. But they
can leave jail as long as they are equipped with a GPS device and are willing
to pay the monthly fees.
Jose must pay
$420 a month to rent the monitor. He must also pay off the bond payment and
interest in monthly installments. He needs to make about $1,420 every month to
cover all fees.
He lives
rent-free in a halfway house and cleans houses to make enough to pay Libre by
Nexus. “All that I wanted was to get out of detention,” Jose told VOA. “I spent
two birthdays, two Christmases without family. It was very hard.”
‘Unfair’
practices?
“Let Libre by
Nexus bring your loved one home,” the company says on its website, calling its
GPS program “a critical service to our clients, the securitization of their
immigration bond so that they can be released from immigration custody.”
But the federal
government is investigating Libre by Nexus, to see if the company has engaged
in “unfair, deceptive or abusive acts” by “marketing or selling those products
or services to consumers or enforcing their terms and conditions.”
Documents show
that on Aug. 22, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sent a request to the
company asking for Libre’s files on about 15,000 clients nationwide.
CFPB, an agency
created by Congress during the financial crisis of 2007-2008 to regulate
financial companies, says the purpose of the civil investigation is to
“determine whether persons who provide products or services related to bonds
posted on behalf of detainees are extending credit or offering to extend
credit.”
The Washington
Post has reported that some contracts between Libre and immigrants have been
“the subject of lawsuits and allegations of fraud by immigrants who did not
understand them.”
The paper
interviewed dozens of immigrants who said Libre employees allegedly threatened
them when they were struggling to pay the monthly fee for the ankle monitor. “I
worry a lot because I don’t have money,” Jose admitted. “I feel embarrassed to
[wear it] so I [don’t] wear shorts. I only leave the house wearing pants.”
Libre responds
Libre filed a
petition in September, arguing the company does not “provide consumer financial
products or services, and therefore, is not subject to the demands of the
CFPB,” which Libre called an “unconstitutional” bureau.
Libre also said
the request was “excessively vague and overbroad” and would cost the company
about $204,160 plus “two employees to spare for 2.5 months to solely focus on
gathering the information” and 8,060 hours of work.
CFPB Bureau
Director Richard Corday rejected Libre’s arguments on Oct. 11 and gave the
company 10 calendar days to “produce all responsive documents.” Libre did not
respond to a VOA email seeking comment. CFPB has not confirmed if Libre
complied with the agency’s request.
Journey to US
Jose was 20
years old when he left Honduras in 2015. He had moved to the city and found
work. But one Sunday, he was approached at work by a man with a gun, who
assaulted him, emptied the cash registers and stole his work phone.
“Then I begin to
receive extortion calls. They told me that I had to make monthly payments and
if I didn’t pay … they would kill me and they knew where my whole family
lived,” Jose said. Jose stopped picking up his cellphone, said goodbye to
relatives, and told his mother that he was leaving for the United States.
After 11 days in
Texas, Jose was taken to Delaney Hall Detention Center in New Jersey. Through a
New Jersey organization called First Friends, which provides detained
immigrants and asylum-seekers assistance with resettlement and advocacy, he was
able to find a lawyer.
Now 22, he lives
in a transition house for immigrants who are rebuilding their lives and waiting
for their day in court. “If the judge says I can stay, that would be amazing,
because I don’t want to go back to my country. It would be my future, my
professional future. I would study, I would be someone,” Jose said.