What we know about the situation in the Matamoros encampment for asylum seekers.

The river has risen. We do not believe it has risen over its banks.

Update: we have heard that most of the people in the camp resisted evacuation and are still there.

UPDATE: They are still at that damn Hampton Inn in McAllen. Can anyone follow them?

Some thoughts this morning.

The Hilton chain backed down and will no longer allow themselves to be used as a prison. We need not wonder that greed, and a little desperation in these hard times for hotels, led them down this hellish path in the first place. And we need not wonder that those same motivations led them to disown the practice after the heroic actions of the Texas Civil Rights Project uncovered this, and allowed us all to spread the outrage all over social media and television.

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 20 July – DEPORTATION FLIGHTS AT RECORD LEVEL SINCE COVID SHUT DOWN IN MARCH

- THIS WEEK THERE WERE 21 DEPORTATION FLIGHTS TO 9 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, TIED WITH THE HIGHEST VOLUME WEEK SINCE THE MARCH 15 SHUT DOWN. COVID SEEDED AND SPREAD TO THE WORLD COMPLIMENTS OF ICE AIR.

In McAllen, Texas, not many miles from Brownsville and the bridges that cross the river into Mexico, along a highway, there’s a Hampton Inn. Hampton Inn is a motel chain run by Hilton Hotels. I stayed at that Hampton Inn the day after I was released from Hidalgo County jail, after my arrest at the detention center at Ursula Road, the detention center made famous for the cages that held children who had been separated from their parents.

Photo by Texas Civil Rights Project

I have never liked rollercoasters. I haven’t ridden many and even those few times I spent the ride wishing fervently for it to end and wondering, after that first time, what possessed me to try it again.

But the one we are on right now is not one that I could have avoided. And it is lasting a long time. And we are climbing higher and higher, ready for a harrowing plunge into the abyss.

Witness stands proudly in the tradition of nuestro hermano John Lewis and the struggles for the "beloved community", at the heart of the African-American liberation and civil rights movements.

Photo: John Lewis with witnesses at Homestead FL Detention Center, July 2, 2019

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 13 July – please share for transparency

THIS WEEK WE ASK WHY? WHY DO ALL THESE FLIGHTS CONTINUE?

The consistency amazes us. this week there were exactly the same numbers of total ICE Air flights and deportations as last week. The ICE Air machine must be fed every week, so it seems.

NEW REPORT

ICE Air Flights June and June 2020 YTD

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 6 July – please share for transparency

(photo: Save the Children protest, Columbus OH, today. Translation " I am not an animal.")

EARLY NEXT WEEK WE WILL PUBLISH THE JUNE, AND JUNE YEAR-TO-DATE, DEATH FLIGHT SUMMARIES – BOTH DEPORTATIONS AND DOMESTIC.

This group began when a few people, informed by experts in child welfare, assembled a pretty lonely protest at the gates of a child migrant prison in Tornillo, Texas. We were there to draw attention to the unnecessary confinement and consequent traumatization of children who were classed as unaccompanied, many of them separated from adult relatives as they came across the border, having fled violence and poverty in their own countries.

Please watch this extremely well done piece by the New York Times and the Marshall Project illustrating how ICE and ICE Air seed and export COVID. We were proud to have contributed some photos and video from our Witness at the Border actions.

It’s like treading water. You don’t get anywhere, but if the waters ever recede, you’ll still be around.

For now the waters are rising. Asylum is no more. The Matamoros encampment is shut to new arrivals and the refugees cower behind fences, wading through the deluge of southern downpours, and Covid at the gates.

DEATH FLIGHTS - WEEK OF 29 JUNE

GUATEMALA RELENTS - REGULAR FLIGHTS REINSTATED AFTER BLOOD MONEY PROMISE

MEXICO FLIGHTS CONTINUE AT ELEVATED LEVELS

WEEKLY SUMMARY : 81 Flights. Down 20 from the extreme 101 last week and just a bit below the prior 8-week average of 87. Deportations of 15 however, was equal to the last 8-week average.

From my Cuban friend in Trump’s MPP prison camp for asylum seekers in Matamoros, Mexico. By now you know that the law said asylum seekers must wait in the US. In his overwhelming cruelty he just changed that, and like garbage and dumped them in this hell. If we don't fight for them, who will? English translation is after the Spanish.

Witnessing is the politics of seeing. To witness is to participate in the unmasking of the obscured, the hidden. We start by noticing the ragged threads of the shroud covering the inevitable consequences of the hoarding of the material underpinnings of life. We use our eyes to tease the threads from our field of vision, and we see enough, after some time on the ground, to turn these glimpses into narrative. Who is doing what to whom.

A confirmed case of COVID in Matamoros encampment. Two others in isolation awaiting results. Let’s hope, and pray if you do, for containment.

DEATH FLIGHTS – ICE ACCELERATES FLIGHTS AS COVID RAMPS UP IN THE US

21 DEPORTATIONS– THE MOST SINCE THE COVID SHUT DOWN ON MARCH 15

10 COUNTRIES PUNISHED WITH COVID EXPORTATION

WEEKLY SUMMARY – Friday 26 June, for the week of 22 June 2020 (please share for transparency)

101 Flights. UP 22 from 79 last week, and SUBSTANTIALLY over the last 8 week average of 76.

Expulsion and deportation. Expulsion is the mechanism by which all asylum is denied. No hearing. No chance to plead for mercy. Even children. Thousands. Sometimes within an hour you are back on the other side of the border. Sometimes they put you on a plane. Goodbye.

ICE Air continues to seed and spread COVID with no restraint. Here is our Witness at the Border view of all the likely ICE Air death flights through May of this year.

**Total ICE Air Flights YTD 2020: 2,036 **

Total ICE Air Deportations YTD: 388

** Total ICE Air Deportation Returns: 364 **

Total ICE Air Domestic Flights: 1,284