asylum

About 15 minutes is all it takes, maybe less. From Manhattan, you take the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey's Route 9/1, a left on to North Avenue and a quick right on to Dowd Avenue, and there: you've arrived at the Elizabeth Detention Center. You wouldn't be the wiser if you missed it, though.

To give you a lay of the land, the Elizabeth Detention Center is a windowless converted warehouse owned and operated by the for-profit Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private corrections company in the United States. The facility is huddled amongst the other masses of industrial buildings just down the street from the Anheuser Busch Company and across the street from the Newark International. It's hard to believe the inconspicuous facility houses 300 detained asylum seekers and other non-criminal non-citizens. These people are hidden but not forgotten.