Posts
2/7/21
ICE Air Weekly Activity – Week of 1 Feb 2021. 25 Removal flights to 8 different countries, the most since the week of 26 October, and 7 higher than the prior 6-week average (includes 2 holidays).
103 total ICE Air legs, also the most since week of 26 October, and 24 higher than prior 6-week average.
Cancellation of a flight to Africa (Cameroon, DR Congo and Angola) one hour before flight time (see notes below).
“Suspension” of flights to Haiti in the near term, after a very unusual 4 flights this week.
2/6/21
We have learned that a detention camp for teens is opening again in Carrizo Springs, Texas. It is run by Baptist Child and Family Services, the organization that ran the camp along the river in the Borderlands of west Texas at a Port of Entry. It was called Tornillo. It became a symbol of all that is wrong about immigration policy. A movement grew as people gathered to witness what they could of the children inside. Without witnesses the children would have been invisible. One child later told us that there were times during his confinement when he could not remember his own name.
2/4/21
This group was established to be a forum, a community, and a clearinghouse for those who feel called to be witnesses to what most of us perceive to be abusive and racist policies toward migrants. These repulsive policies are going on right now. They include the practice of imprisoning migrants, often euphemistically called detention, damaging families, life-threatening deportation, and what is now called expulsion, built on the false narrative that migrants are more of a threat to your health than the Super Bowl party next door.
2/1/21
ICE Air is a little more active than most Mondays with most likely 4 removal flights rather than the typical 3. It is still early and not all is clear. Removals to Haiti, Honduras done or in the air and anticipate 2 to MX. Today is the first day of Black history month….The day finished with 14 ICE Air legs, on the high side of typical for Monday. Removals to Haiti, Honduras, Morelia MX and Villahermosa MX.
1/31/21
If you have been following this group for long, you will have noticed that the word “witness” in the group’s name gets repeated quite a bit in posts. I certainly mention it a lot.
It may leave you with the impression that I think that witnessing is the answer to the monumental problems of forced migration and racism, and the tragic and staggering inequality in human society. But I want to clarify this a bit. It seems to me that witnessing presents us with more of a question than an answer. And the question is this: Can we look straight into the face of this injustice, see it in not just an intellectual way, but a visceral one, without something shifting? Without a transformation of ourselves, and then of more than just ourselves?
1/30/31
ICE Air Weekly Activity – Week of 25 January 2021
Ø Despite 2 days of the 100-day moratorium, and a new Administration, total ICE Air flights this week were equal to the prior 6-week average.
Ø It is curious to me that the Biden Administration has not found a way with or without a moratorium, to reduce the number of ICE Air removal and domestic flights.
Ø This week, 20 deportation/expulsion flights to 7 different countries and 79 total ICE Air flights. 2 over the prior 6-week average.
Photo: Jan 29 flight to Honduras by Frances Kelley who witnessed it
1/28/21
STATEMENT ON FORCED MIGRATION:
MIGRANT MASSACRE AND REPRESSION OF MIGRANT CARAVAN SPOTLIGHT MORTAL DANGERS FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS HEADING NORTH
January 28, 2021, Brooklyn NY -- On the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the Trump administration’s implementation of the notorious Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), or Remain in Mexico, and on the eve of additional immigration measures to be announced by the Biden administration, Witness at the Border issues the following statement.
Image: Border Report
