Under MPP, the exceptions for being granted entrance are supposed to be for medical conditions and being members of a protected group, such as LGBTQ or disabled people. But reports are that even those people are sent back to wait.

Photo credit, Allan Mestel

Shine A Light on the Border March, Brownsville

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We watched, called out, waved and crowded the migra buses at the Brownsville airport, and inside shackled hands were raised in response to us, and it made it easy to shrug off orders to move away from the buses, orders given by agents, plainclothes and otherwise, of the terrorist organization known as ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the armed men who get people, people, loaded onto planes, to fly them back to the belly of the beast they left, migrating northward, following the drinking gourd, where the old man is a-waiting, not to carry you to freedom, but to doom.

Police, protesters clash over Valentine’s Day deportation flights at South Texas airport

Group has 4 days worth of protests, marches and events planned to protest treatment of asylum-seekers

Border Report, by Sandra Sanchez

Day 33: The notorious Gale Gordon has returned to witness. Come meet her! #witnessattheborder #restoreasylumnow #restoreasylum #endmpp

We met her yesterday as we walked along the levee that protects Matamoros from the Rio we name Grande and others call Bravo. On the river side of the levee is the encampment of asylum seekers waiting their turns to learn their fate, and meanwhile existing.

Fran Schindler and her fan club of young asylum seekers, escorting her back from the encampment in Matamoros to wave goodbye as she walks across the Gateway International Bridge back into the USA.

Where we, the Witnesses at the Border, set up our camp each day is directly across from the major pedestrian bridge, the militarized border between Brownsville on the US side, and Matamoros on the Mexican side. We hang our banners, hold our signs. And we watch.

Evening Contemplation. Double Jeopardy. The Rio Grande and the Sham Tent Courts.

I wonder if that's what this man I photographed tonight in the Matamoros, Mexico encampment is thinking about as he stares across the river to the sham courts.

Shame. Vergüenza.

Back at our corner now, banners tied, the wind beginning to pick up. We were at the airport this morning where we faced some objections to our presence as another boxcar in the sky loaded up with shackled humanity, while ICE personnel and others followed us with vehicles to block our view of deportees climbing the steps of another plane bound for Guatemala.

Our Hands

It is 7 am. I am at the Brownsville-South Padre Airport at the southernmost tip of the US border with Mexico. I came to witness a flight on World Atlantic, leaving this morning for Guatemala. They have moved the plane so that it is mostly shielded from view. But sneaking around I was able to see four buses full of humanity, the intended cargo for this boxcar in the sky.

Now we witness at Matamoros, and at the airport. Why are there Witnesses at the tiny Brownsville airport? Because people, mostly people who look like teenagers in shackles are put onto planes, deported and dumped like garbage in a third country. The Witness group had heard that deportation flights were leaving Brownsville for quite some time, although the information wasn't open to the public. Debbie Nathan who organized a group in El Paso to monitor deportation flights encouraged the #WitnessAtTheBorder group to go to the Brownsville airport and Witness there.

Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR)
The new policy of cruelty that loads families on planes and sends them to third countries, after their long journey to our border. Flight bound for Guatemala. Witnessing this morning at Brownsville Airport.

Just got back. We went to the airport at Brownsville in the dark, to find four bus loads of what appeared to be very young men and women, many looking like teens, frisked in their five-point restraints, on their way to the SwiftAir plane, destined this morning for Guatemala.

“Border agents detain migrants, many of them seeking asylum, along the Texas border last year. The Trump administration has started a pilot program this year to take DNA from detained immigrants as young as 14 and put it in an FBI database. The plan has sparked privacy concerns. “(AP/Eric Gay), The Center for Public Integrity

And at least once each day, an ambulance pulls up to those steps to rescue someone who has succumbed on the long wait forced on those that don’t have the neat blue passport that I have, who are on the long line that may take hours, that often extends down the other side, reaching back to the streets of Matamoros.

Julie Swift, Karla Barber and Josh Rubin welcome witnesses

We will head for Brownsville airport in a few minutes, to witness planes being loaded with humanity, bound for Central America. The planes will drop off hundreds in a country they do not know, and ask them, in their disorientation, whether they want to take the next step and return to the country they fled. Many will say yes, frightened of the unknown

This #HistoryHero has proven that even just one person can make a positive difference.

Joshua Rubin was outraged when Trump & Co. started ripping children out of the arms of parents in spring 2018, criminalizing asylum seekers on the US/Mex border.