By Michael Seifert
Last week I was helping clean up the small room that serves as a clinic at the Sacred Heart Respite Center in McAllen, Texas. Looking for a broom, I noticed a woman seated in a chair in the corner of the hallway, her ankle monitor plugged into a wall socket. She looked nervous and sad, and so I introduced myself. Our conversation was halting—she was from the Quiche region of Guatemala and Spanish was her second language, as she had grown up speaking her mother tongue.
I managed to ask her how often she had to charge the ankle device, and she looked at me, stricken, and said, “I really don’t know. They explained this part very fast, but the man told me that very bad things would happen if I didn’t keep it charged.”