Tag: Faithful Friends

Struggling to find hope at Yuba County Jail

Chico activist visits a third immigrant detainee, one of a trio of "castaways"
by Chris Nelson | Posted November 18, 2019

jail photo from Faithful Friends

The man I met during a late October visit to the Yuba County Jail has a kind face, wears glasses and has a neat, graying hairstyle. He was the third inmate I’ve met through a visitation program run by Faithful Friends, a group that arranges visits for immigrant detainees.

As a nurse, I know that anecdotal information does not make a truth. Yet, I’m struck by the similarities among the three men I’ve visited, and I see truth emerging through the presence of these castaway humans.

The first man I visited was in his 40s and facing deportation to Vietnam. He grew up in a two-parent home in a poor neighborhood and was bullied at school for being different. read more

Nelson finds her visit with immigrant detainee “poignant”

Detained immigrants in Yuba City need human contact, visitation group says
by Chris Nelson | Posted July 3, 2019

photo by Chris Nelson
Visitors entrance at the Yuba County Jail

It was serendipity that I visited the man I did at the Yuba County Jail Monday in Marysville.

I got there four minutes too late to see the man I had planned to meet; the second name I had was a man who had been transferred elsewhere and the third candidate wasn’t available for a visit until later in the day. All three of those men had Latino surnames. The man I did get to visit was from Vietnam.

He was a pleasant, middle-aged man with glasses. I could barely hear him through the phone line — another prisoner had to help us get connected because we could not negotiate use of the phone. We were there, facing each other for an hour conversation in one of 13 designated seats in the basement of the Yuba County Jail, looking at each other through dirty glass along with a room full of women and kids — mostly Latinas — there to visit other men. read more