2/22/20

By Josh Rubin

DESAPARECIDOS

I sometimes think that people, even people who have come to the border to witness, don’t quite realize what they are seeing. It is easy to see that people are being prevented from crossing the border to safety, and are being kept in difficult conditions. And to see that there are valiant, caring efforts are being made to address some of the material needs of people in the Matamoros encampment.

Harder to see, because it is a subject that is avoided, especially while in Matamoros, is the danger faced by the asylum seekers while they abide in the encampment. Matamoros is ostensibly not as dangerous as some other border cities. Nuevo Laredo comes to mind. But still, we have heard stories told in low voices of kidnap, ransom and rape. The shots that rang out the day before yesterday are a reminder that cuts through a sort of conspiracy of silence, an agreement to keep things on the down low.

But there is another danger, even less well articulated, barely even whispered. It is the danger of being disappeared. The more people are hidden, the less they are seen, the more anonymous we make them, or we agree to keep them, the easier it is for them to disappear. When MPP began and detention was effectively moved to the other side of the border, the people became harder to see. When the encampment was moved away from the plaza and behind the fence and the levee, they were further obscured. Even now, they remain uncounted, unnamed, and there are many who argue that they should remain unidentified.

And as MPP gives way to rapid asylum denial and deportation flights to obscurity in Central America, the danger of disappearance becomes even greater. Perhaps it is time to remind ourselves, or inform ourselves if we never have heard, of the mass graves that are found here and there, piles of unidentified bones of those who traveled too long in obscurity, those who we allowed to remain faceless and nameless.

If you will not say their names, at least say this: desaparecidos.