3/20/21

By Josh Rubin

My friend Karla reminds me that back when we were haunting the gates of Tornillo people would sometimes ask why we were there. Not because they disagreed with our cause. But because, they wondered, why weren’t we raising our voices back when Obama was carrying out a policy of punitive deportations. Where were we then?

It is a good question, and one that we don’t have a good answer for. The mistreatment of migrants has a long history, and many people, including myself, come to it late. But we came to it, and we have learned some things. One thing we have learned is that the injustice we struggle against is a baked-in feature of our system. It relies on a view on people that is partitioned along racial lines, along class lines, along national lines, along border lines.

And while we hope hope that even within this system and world view that conditions can be made better, we can see that a change in the party in power is not the sea change that is needed to take place for the walls of injustice to come tumbling down.

So, two things. First, we will join with and initiate efforts to highlight and end practices like migrant and child detention and the wholesale rejection of people who migrate, and we will celebrate whatever small victories come our way. Second, we will keep a vision of a world that recognizes the human right to migrate, and this time, we will not allow ourselves to be confused by the muddy waters and vagaries of election cycles.

And the next time someone asks where we were, and where we are, we will be able to say, right here. Join us.