6/29/21

By Josh Rubin

When a storm rained heavily on Fort Bliss the day before yesterday, the remaining tents leaked. Water puddled on the rubber tiles that fit together a little like jigsaw pieces. The ventilation system that struggles to cool the tents that sit under the desert sun had the added challenge of humidity.

Fewer than 800 migrant children remain in the makeshift encampment that once held well over 4000 children, when the holding facility was by far the largest de facto child prison in the country. Tents have come down as story after story hits the press describing conditions inside.

Why do I call it a prison and not a shelter? Because in a shelter, children do not try to escape. They do not have sharp objects like the bendable pieces in their face masks taken away so that they won’t use them to cut themselves, to shed tears of blood and despair.

Multiple contractors operate the facility, one a company that specializes in emergency cleanups, and promises to respond to floods and disasters, but has no experience in child care. Their slogan includes a promise about making it like “it never even happened.” I only wish it were so.

It may be that the days of the Fort Bliss tent prison are nearly over. Some decry it as an anomaly. But those of us who have stood vigil at other fenced encampments, listening to the reports which always come out, from workers who bravely violate their oath of secrecy, telling us of the horrors of life inside—we know this is no anomaly. This is the nature of the beast.

Separate children from their families with punitive border policies. Put them in camps run by for-profit companies that hire people on short contract with no experience, in remote places. Restrict access to the press, take away phones, swear those who work there to secrecy. This is the recipe for the disaster we see over and over again.

When Fort Bliss strikes its last tent, and the scorpions and the lice scatter to the winds of the Sonoran desert, it will not be over. And for the children who were held there, it will have happened. It will never be over.