Sending Light into the Dark

A Practical Way to Help Detainees

For years I wrote for the Huffington Post, and then for years more, Medium, and the preponderance of my political articles were written in trying-to-push-the-needle pundit mode – albeit always informed by personal experience. I’ve noticed, with Substack, that I have finally let go of all delusions that my writing could eventually lead to a byline in the Atlantic or the New York Times or whatever platform I secretly lusted to get on 10 or 15 years ago. I take a different approach now: urging individual action that helps individual people, though making the case still grounded by events in my own life.

I haven’t written much about the immigration crisis, but it is weighing on me almost as much as Gaza. In particular, I am haunted by the thought of the conditions in detention centers, which we know little about, but by all accounts are dismal. I wince every time I hear the food described as “maggot-infested” and the water as brownish and undrinkable. So I looked up on Chatgpt whether these centers have commissaries where you can buy food (and supplies, like pen and paper.) In prisons or jails where the food was awful (like County) or not near enough in quantity (Chino) “store” was a lifeline for feeling like a human being for me along with my co-detainees.

I’d somehow forgotten why there would of course be commissaries at all the ICE detention centers, because they are a vital profit center for these for-profit prisons. First ICE incarcerates working class migrants already living paycheck to paycheck, then squeeze every last dime from their families who remain on the outside, who may have just lost their primary breadwinner. It was a racket I remember from prison, where relatively few had families like I did who made sure I always had enough on my books for plenty of soups and toiletries and tuna and snacks. Many had families who could send nothing or next to nothing, or cut their standard of living to the bone to make sure their loved one had the bare necessities. Think of the grandmother on Social Security who won’t turn on the air conditioner on a 90 degree day because she had to make sure her grandson had $40 so he could buy soups.

I had to imagine what survival was like for the Gazans well before I adopted the Shaats, but when it comes to being in detention with nothing, I don’t have to imagine as much, because each time I was transferred I often had to wait a week or two to order anything, and then another week for it to arrive. Those were the toughest weeks.

I was completely guilty of the crimes that sent me to prison, and when I committed them, fully aware I was playing with fire that could land me behind bars, living in spartan conditions. The dreadful consequences were preventable had I just stopping doing what I was doing. Punishment sucked, but it did not feel unjust or arbitrary. I had no one to blame but myself. That part was depressing, but also softened the despair. You did this, was my inner refrain. You did this.

But these arrested and currently confined migrants are guilty of no crime except wanting a better life, for which nobody, anywhere should ever end up incarcerated. Their loved ones may be able to spare very little to alleviate their living conditions, especially if they are also trying to pay for a lawyer, or suddenly survive on one income (or none). The detainee – especially in those first, shocked weeks-- will be afraid, depressed and unimaginably lonely, often without even pen and paper or stamps to enable him to write home. There were only a few really bad weeks for me in prison, but I would place that kind of despair far beyond what I had to endure even during those.

Thinking of these individuals, I inquired as to organizations that specifically put money in the commissary accounts of inmates who have no funds. I found two who do this specifically (along with provide other vital services.)

https://www.mainersforhumaneimmigration.org/

and

https://firstfriendsnjny.org/

I particularly like the Maine one, at least its website. They no doubt operate on a shoe string (although Stephen King is a Mainer, so perhaps…)

The irony of my asking you to consider contributing to either of these groups is that I can’t practice what I preach right now. I am stretched thin as thin can be helping out my Gazans, (as well as Letissia, the single mother who cleans my house who is like a daughter to me.) I seriously considered volunteering to write some of these inmates, as I speak Spanish, but I cannot risk meeting another desperate and poor person and his or her family. I know myself. I will adopt them too, and drive myself further into debt. I simply cannot.

But I do have social media, and so I will spread this information on Substack and BlueSky and Facebook, and I thought those of you who are also stretched to the limit as far as your giving budget can also do the same. Perhaps you have wealthier friends whose checkbook you might pry open. Of course, if you can give, please give, even if that money might have otherwise been gone to me to help Mahmoud and his family. The thought of anyone not having even toothpaste or stamps to write home makes me feel very grey inside.

This ICE horror show upsets me almost as much as Gaza does, but I have found that giving money that goes to actual individuals is one of the only strategies that temporarily alleviates my distress. (Donating occasionally to an animal rescue or no-kill shelter does the same for my dog-suffering stress.) I can’t give anything apart from to the Gazans now, but I will give something to the Maine organization the next paycheck. There are also great pro-immigrant organizations in L.A., but I can’t volunteer, because I would end up cancelling all the time due to how projects are handed to me – with no warning and very tight deadlines (“due end of day or tomorrow morning” - always). I’d rather make money and give it away then promise my time and then be a no show. You have to volunteer like it’s a paid job.

There is a strong additional factor to my reluctance I must be honest about. I don’t really like leaving the house anymore. My cocooning instinct is getting stronger and stronger as I get older, bordering on agoraphobia.

Ironic, considering how many years you couldn’t keep me in the house. (I had what we called “Every Night Fever.”

Below, an excerpt from Ink from the Pen about the first time I was without access to commissary. It was early after my arrest, I was in LA Country Jail. A little context. I’d just spent an awful week in suicide-watch lockdown in which I was deprived of everything put food. I couldn’t brush my teeth for a week—toothbrushes being too vulnerable to becoming a tool for self-harm — I can still conjure up how awful that was.

Denizens

That Monday, we were called to be interviewed individually by one of the deputies who supervised the “K-11” dorms. Their job was to make sure no one was faking being gay to avoid the far more violent regular dorms, although plenty who’d learned the names of a few gay bars routinely got through. I passed with flying colors, of course, and the kindly and avuncular “Deputy Mike” actually took me personally to the property room to retrieve my glasses.

He assigned me to the least “hectic” of the three gay dorms, 5100, which consisted of a large cavernous room with about 75 bunk beds or so. We were watched from above — quite literally — by a guard box that stretched into the adjoining dorms, so that one officer could go back and forth supervising all of them. An inmate “house-mouse” was appointed by the corrections officers to oversee each room.

As soon as I was given my bunk assignment, I scoured the dorm for the man who’d been my meth supplier. He’d been arrested the month before. Larry was actually something of a friend, at least by the standards of lower companionship to which I’d become accustomed. He was age 64, a Vietnam vet, and the father of a few grown sons. He was as thin as a folding chair and looked and sounded like a wizened Okie farmer. He’d done a few substantial stretches of time in prison, but every time he got out, he drifted back into the life of a dealer — less for the money than for the handsome Latino boys who gladly hung around him for the free meth.

I was incredibly relieved to find him, if only to borrow some real toothpaste, as the powder the county supplied tasted like detergent. Larry explained to me that every week we filled out an order form for food and toiletries, which took a week to be delivered. You could order up to $200 worth of items. Derek had deposited some money in my account a few days before, but my timing was bad, as I’d arrived to the dorm literally just hours after the cut-off point for submitting the next week’s order. Seeing my distress, Larry put together a care package for me out of his own supplies.

He was a little embarrassed by my gratitude.

“Hang on, hang on, don’t go crying on me. It’s just a few soups and some chips. You’ll pay me back.”

As if I could ever.

MCO 2026