Posts
3/6/21
Carrizo Springs, under the direction of Baptist Child and Family Services (BCFS), which operated Tornillo, reopened after sitting empty for over a year. The facility will temporarily house children 13 through 17 in a remodeled former oil field man-camp until they are sent to their sponsors.
3/6/21
One day we may, from greater distance, understand the history of the Matamoros migrant encampment. We will see how it fit in with a broader movement. Something along the lines of another manifestation of the coalescence of migrants, forced by social disaster to leave their homes and make their way north. Key to our understanding must be the resistance, like that represented by the caravans, to the scattering of souls that so often ends in exploitation, persecution, and death.
3/4/21
We are lucky enough to share in the joy of the people we got to know in the Matamoros encampment, those forced into the limbo of MPP, Remain in Mexico, joy at their orderly release to the other side of the river, to buses and planes and the embrace of their families. Each day we glimpse their happiness in the videos they send us, the things they tell us from their soaring hearts.
3/4/21
Migrant ‘Protection’ Protocols Survivor Stories #3: Natasha
When your choices are persecution, solitary confinement, or going underground, ‘protection’ is prevarication, nada mas.
THE FIRST SOLUTION: Tales of Humanity and Heroism from Trump’s Manufactured Border Crisis, MPP Survivor Story #3
Image: Ray and Natasha
3/3/21
Took my camera to Day 3 at Homestead. More pics and video to come, but it's late and I'm tired, and clearly indecisive. Homestead Reopening Resistance.
Background: the Homestead, Florida, child detention center, closed in 2019, is set to reopen as a child detention center again by the Biden administration. Renamed Biscayne Influx Care Facility.
3/2/21
The following is a response to a question I am repeatedly asked: on the issue of how to handle migrant children at our borders, what would I do instead? Here are some thoughts.
The claim is that the current flow and expected increase in the flow of unaccompanied minors into the country will exceed hard-walled shelter capacity, necessitating the extensive use of temporary influx shelters which are determined to be comparatively detrimental to child welfare. This discussion accepts the premise.
3/1/21
ICE Air Weekly Activity – Week of 22 Feb 2021.
Photo: A young girl learns she will be freed from the trap of MPP in Matamoros and will join her family in the US to seek asylum. Joy.
Far fewer removal flights than most weeks at 15. Driven by 6 fewer flights per week to Mexico.
There were a large number of domestic flights shuffling people around the US, but some may have been make-up flights from those weather impacted the prior week.
3/1/21
You want to move your family to North Carolina. Some of your family already lives there. They went a few years ago when they heard there was work there, building furniture. Some farm work. Rents are not high, especially if you are willing to tolerate the smell of pig farms when the wind shifts in the spring.
2/26/21
When the US government was sued by attorneys representing a little girl named Jenny Lisette Flores, a few principles were established that were intended to improve the experience of migrant children who were going through traumatic transition as a result of their migration to this country, often involving separation from their families.
It was determined that the most damaging thing you could do to children was to restrict them, in other words, to lock them up.
2/24/21
What’s Next? Postcard Campaign
Urgent Postcard - Mailing February 24-28
Imprisoning Children is STILL Wrong
Recently the Biden administration has announced that it is opening/reopening several “Influx” Child Detention Centers. We oppose these moves and need to make sure that the Biden administration hears our opposition.
