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.

Today at 11:30 mountain time in El Paso! Border Network for Human Rights Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance (RITA) Coalition to End Child Detention- El Paso Detention Watch Network

Say it out loud -- loud enough for Vice President Kamala Harris to hear:

FORT BLISS IS NO PLACE FOR KIDS!

Listen here: WITNESS RADIO Ep. 2: March for Detained Children

We see things differently. So what we mean when we witness things can be very different depending on our perspectives. Some of us see the suffering of people at the border caused by the barriers we erect to our common humanity. Others see, so they tell us, an earnest attempt to right a ship that nearly capsized into a four year eruption of xenophobia.

“Matamoros Pietá” by Melissa Bowen Rubin

Today we remember Óscar and Valeria.On June 23, 2019, two Salvadoran migrants, father and daughter, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos, drowned crossing the river between Matamoros, Mexico and Brownsville, Texas.

If it were not inflicting terrible pain on desperate humans, it would only seem ridiculous to try to contain the movement of people from places where their homes are gone, where there is no way of working for a living and feeding their families. Telling people they “should not come” in full knowledge of their dire straits would be like a joke of some kind. Like pouring a shaken up beer into a glass and making a fool of yourself trying to keep the foam from overflowing onto the table. Or packing a bigtop full of clowns into a tiny car.

Photo by Allan Mestel

War has been declared in Texas. Not against injustice, but against the oppressed. Not against poverty, but against the poor. Not against homelessness but against the homeless. Not against hunger, but against the hungry. Not against terror, but against the terrified.

The wind does not stop at the border. Guns and walls and troops and concertina wire barely ripple the currents of whatever river remains along that line. Although it is drawn on the earth, it disappears from a distance, out of sight from the foothills of the Franklin Mountains, the division of El Paso and Juarez blurring before the eyes.

“Matamoros Pietà” by Melissa Bowen Rubin

Activism is a humbling experience. Not only does it remind us of how little we can accomplish in this world, but it throws into doubt the assumptions we make about human nature and the social forces that drive the tides in the affairs of humans.

Many of us—and I am thinking of myself here—construct their political strategy from a notion that in all of us can be found a common substrate of ideas about right and wrong, love and hate, righteousness and shame. But I am beginning to have doubts that these are easily found, and if found, may not provide the best basis for leverage, for persuasion.

And the news comes spilling out of Fort Bliss. Remember Fort Bliss? The place where we put children who we have separated from their families with decades of cruelty and greed? The place where it is hard to see the children, because no one is allowed inside. The place where employees must surrender their phones so no pictures can get out. The place where there are children on suicide watch.

Our statement was released to the press today, with sign-ons from partners listed below.

FT. BLISS AND OTHER DETENTION MEGASITES ARE NO PLACE FOR CHILDREN

Ft. Bliss detention facility must be shut down, immediately

NEW TODAY: "Fired Workers Claim Poor Conditions at Ft. Bliss Migrant Shelter," El Paso Times, 6/2/21

Photo: Allan Mestel

It is said from time to time that history is written by those who hold power. It is only a small step further to infer that the manipulation of our social memory serves the purposes of the powerful. That the story that is chiseled into posterity supports a social order. And it follows that the stories of those without the podia of power are rarely told. They can be seen by those who watch closely, but all too quickly are obscured by the steady flow of time, the greatest wave barely a ripple, mostly gone once the eyes that witnessed them close for the last time. The story then goes untold, and we are left to wonder whether those lives and loves and struggles ever happened. Whether most of us ever existed at all.

FT. BLISS AND OTHER DETENTION MEGASITES ARE NO PLACE FOR CHILDREN

Ft. Bliss detention facility must be shut down, immediately

Witness at the Border/Testigos en la Frontera calls for the megasite migrant youth detention facilities--especially at Ft. Bliss--to be shut down immediately. Recent testimonies from staff and volunteers at the site, together with reports from independent observers as reported in the media provide convergent evidence that the tent facility is operating, in effect, as a prison, and not as a shelter for vulnerable youth.

When people migrate, and they always have, it is because things are not going well where they live. And in a world as fraught with inequality and climate change as ours seems to be, migration will be happening at an accelerated pace. If we could make choices as a species, the choices would be simple. We would address the causes of inequality and climate change, while making space for those dislocated. We would, in a word, cooperate.

TAKE ACTION: Today we joined over 50 organizations in the Welcome With Dignity campaign! We believe in #WelcomeWithDignity. End Title 42. Don't detain children--EVER. Protect children at the border, let people apply for asylum, stop expelling Black migrants to danger under the false pretense of public health orders. WE SUPPORT THE WELCOME WITH DIGNITY CAMPAIGN BECAUSE WE SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO MIGRATE, the abolition of ICE, and so much more. Please take action by signing the pledge on this website! Join us and share.

https://welcomewithdignity.org/ Image: Allan Mestel

I have learned from my friends en la lucha that language matters. That “catch and release” summons images of fish, not humans, and makes a harrowing process sound like a sporting choice. We have watched as the Biden administration has been using its editing pencil to put its lines through “alien,” settling for unaccompanied and illegal and irregular, no doubt recognizing that the old term too easily suggested scaly things with bulbous heads and glowing fingertips.

Here in our Witness at the Border group, Larry Cox lets us know of his anguish when detention centers, prisons, are called shelters. He reminds us, as we all should always remember, that shelters do not need guards to prevent escape.

Here is what we know. BBC reports a case of sexual abuse at the child prison compound at Fort Bliss in West Texas. Other cases are rumored. The entire staff of a company providing what are called youth care workers is fired and replaced by staff of another company whose previous experience seems to be cleaning up floods and mold.

THIS IS WHY WE WITNESS! FORT BLISS IS NO PLACE FOR CHILDREN: All migrant children currently deprived of their freedom at Ft. Bliss should be immediately released to families or sponsors. If the abusive, traumatizing conditions documented by NYT, BBC, and El Paso Matters, including at least 1 alleged case of sexual abuse, are not enough for Biden administration to act, what will it take? JOIN US! FREE THEM! NOW!!