Our observations have suggested a couple of things. First, we have heard from more than one source that the rate of people being placed into MPP—that is, the policy that strands people in Mexican border cities while a long, drawn out sham legal process takes place—has slowed significantly. We heard this from attorneys who keep track of new MPP cases in Matamoros. And we have watched as the total number of MPP cases reported by the US government has stayed the same for three months now, 60,000 being that number.

45th Day of Witnessing at the Border

Today was my first day to #WitnessAtTheAirport. Today I ask you to join us not because the rewards you receive are greater than what you give, which they are, but because what I saw at the airport was so chilling, and so frightening that I have lost my smile. I hope that I will find it again when I cross the Rio Grande and see the children today.

Let’s talk about the courts, the ones set up in tents right at the US side of the bridge.

The judges aren’t inside, they attend by videoconference. The asylum seekers enter the tents through a back way from the bridge across the the Rio, across the border. Right about the same time as we began witnessing in Brownsville, the courts started letting observers in for what are known as calendar sessions. The calendar sessions are the ones where the judges all say yes. Yes, we will schedule a date for you to try and convince a judge that you should get asylum. That ultimate session is the one where the judges say no. You might have a few more calendar sessions along the way. But the final session, called the merits session is the the one that counts.

No, there is no asylum any more, it got canceled by the administration last year on July 15.

A most amazing thing. People just show up, from all around the country, to witness and protest the cruel impact our immigration policies are having on people stuck just across our border with Mexico.

DESAPARECIDOS

I sometimes think that people, even people who have come to the border to witness, don’t quite realize what they are seeing. It is easy to see that people are being prevented from crossing the border to safety, and are being kept in difficult conditions. And to see that there are valiant, caring efforts are being made to address some of the material needs of people in the Matamoros encampment.

Here are two things about the situation in Matamoros that are not widely discussed.

First, there are far more asylum seekers in Matamoros that are NOT at the encampment than there are in the encampment. We believe there are better than 5,000 people who have found other places to stay, including shelters and rented or borrowed spaces. We do not know about the well-being of these others who may be spending what little money they have to pay for their apartments and rooms. Some of them have found work.

We go out mornings to the airport and we watch as people who must be trembling with fear are patted down, their mouths inspected, shackled at five points, carefully watching their feet in the semi dark on the stairs into planes that will take them back south, into an abyss.

As so often now, we rise before dawn to put our eyes on a regular event, the wrenching sight of deportation, at the airport here in Brownsville. Buses, run by a transport and security company called Trail Boss, will arrive, and we will see in the windows of the buses the silhouettes of people, people who may raise their hands to show us that they see us, and that they are shackled.

Happy Presidents’ Day

Julie Oliver, Candidate US Congress Tx 25th

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

Please share widely.

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.