DREAM Act Portal Forum - I got detained...

I haven't posted in a while. It's time I give everybody a heads up.

Ten days ago, I got a phone call at 7:30 am. It took me twenty minutes to find out what the call was about.

My brother was found dead in his apartment of an apparent suicide.

He was a DREAMer, just like me.

My mother wept. She was crying so hard I couldn't understand what she was saying. People begged me to come back home. It was as if they thought I would be next. They booked me a ticket, all the way to NY Penn Station.

What my ticket didn't tell me was that on the way, my train would stop at Buffalo. Border Patrol would get on the train, question me, and place me under arrest until I could pay the $5,000 bond the next day.

In custody, I was manhandled, immediately placed under immense psychological pressure. Two days after the loss of my brother, I was being interrogated by BP, told what to do, taken in and out of cells to break my will, pressured into signing documents and provide information. "Not without my lawyer." I insisted in the face of their intimidation. After what felt like hours underneath the scornful gazes and mocking comments of six or seven BP personnel, I was taken to detention. My belongings taken away, I was stripped naked, made to shower in public and put on a prison uniform, complete with custom prison underwear.

I slept in a cell block that night. Thankfully it would be my last.

My frantic phone calls to a dear friend using the prison pay-phone system led to me being bailed out. My confidence in the face of it all was surreal, not only to myself, but to the personnel at the facility. After a decade of fearing the dragon, I was facing him. I felt the scornful looks, the frowning, contempt-laden demeanors morphed into a sort of grudging respect as I strode confidently, cracked jokes, smiled and charmed them with conversation. I couldn't explain it.

On my way out, they wouldn't make me wait in the small waiting cells like they did to the others. They said I could wait at the bench. One of them told me he was sorry I was treated this way. The others made small talk with me.

I knew I couldn't despise them- beneath the tough exteriors, they were just following orders. I might go back and visit them some day.

But with all the paperwork processed, my stay at the detention facility ended with an escorted walk out into the sun, past the giant double-gates, past the parking lots and into the arms of my dear friend. I was finally going home.

I had to ask her to slow down as we approached my house. The memories were coming too hard, too fast. This was a house I hadn't stepped into for two years. A house of mourning. Every store, every turn, every familiar landmark reminded me of my brother. we had to park outside of Walgreens, lest I break down. I couldn't let myself cry.

I got home, and within minutes, here I was, the scent of food, the murmur of somber voices, solemn gazes, stifled enthusiasm. I was seeing my parents for the first time in two years. And my sister at fourteen, less like a girl and more like a woman now. I was whisked away immediately to try on a suit for the funeral the next morning. It was hardly ten minutes.

I didn't tell my mother. I couldn't. How could I? She had already lost a son, and she now risks losing another. How could she have possibly taken it?

We waited till the burial. And then her first night. When her intermittent sobbing died down, we worked up the courage to tell her what had happened to me on my way here.

And now we fight.

My mother and my sister live here. My brother is buried here. I want to stay.

I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm asking for support. I'm not sure what and how.

If anyone knows who I can contact, please let me know.

I love you guys.