5/20/21

By Josh Rubin

The Buffalo Soldier gate of Fort Bliss faces an exit from the El Paso International Airport. One would need only to keep driving straight ahead from the airport to find oneself at the checkpoint, the guardhouse, that first announces that you are entering the fort, then stops you to challenge your presence before you arrive at a southern corner of the desert base, larger than any other, spanning state lines, lined at its northern extremes with the scars of missiles fired as tests of our power.

Most of us see only the edges, the perimeter. The interior is shielded by security concerns. The enemy, which potentially includes us, dear reader, can only see as far as the eye can reach into its arid heart. But some, over the years, are taken inside. They are awarded the special status of prisoners and are confined well within, out of sight.

Today’s prisoners are children. They are held because they are separated from their families. Although this is not a crime, it might be considered an embarrassment. When children were held at nearby Tornillo, their presence led to a national scandal about the conditions there. When reporters observed children inside the convention center in Dallas, they noted the urgency of depression, lines of cots in massive chambers. It wasn’t hard to see.

It isn’t hard to keep children in prison tents in the middle of the West Texas desert. In massive tents, with guards, surrounded by the greatest military the world has ever known. They are, after all, children. Hope is easily extinguished. But it is harder to keep the story of those children from getting out. It got out from Tornillo, from Homestead. From Dallas, from Houston. From Midland.

Will it get out from Bliss? That’s up to us. It won’t be easy.