Posts
4/3/23
We tend to engage the world at a point in the discussion where we have already conceded, indeed surrendered to, a number of assumptions. That inequality can only be mitigated. That there is not enough food to feed everyone, nor enough houses to shelter the unhoused. That all we can do is round the sharp edges of injustice.
3/18/23
Tom Cartwright, for the leadership team at Witness at the Border, submitted this organizational comment in opposition to the proposed Asylum Ban via https://www.regulations.gov.
Use this template to write your ownโmake sure to add unique commentsโat NoAsylumBan.us. Only 10 more days! The deadline is March 27.
3/10/23
๐๐น ๐ฆ๐๐ฒรฑ๐ผ ๐๐บ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ป๐ผ / ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐บ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ป ๐๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐บ
Tom Kiefer, originally from California moved to Ajo to photograph landscapes. He took a job as a janitor with Customs and Border Patrol.
When emptying the trash, he realized that good food was being disposed of. With permission, he collected the food and gave it to local food pantries.
He then started collecting the personal items of asylum seekers. Passports, birth certificates, private letters, rosaries, bibles, even a CD collection that one played while crossing the desert and so much more.
https://www.tomkiefer.com/
3/8/23
Word trickles out to us that the Homeland security folks have a table onto which they are loading tools and schemes to deal with the migration of people in our hemisphere to the frontiers of United States, notably the southern border. They are lining up possible approaches to substitute for the scam called Title 42, which claimed the right to expel migrants, no questions asked, based on the myth that they would carry COVID to us, to one of the most infected nations on the planet.
3/6/23
Have you been to Matamoros?
It is over an international bridge from Brownsville, Texas. As far as I can tell, it is the southernmost spot on the land border between our two countries. It is a place that migrants are drawn to on their journeys, whether from parts of Mexico itself or from the many places people are leaving to find a way for them and their families to survive. Migrants find themselves stranded there, following the changing rules about how to get into the United States. And the rules change often, lately making it harder and harder to cross that fateful river.
3/1/23
A few years ago, those of us who started this group began by planting ourselves outside a fenced-in cluster of tents at a port of entry, east enough from the city of El Paso to feel like the middle of nowhere, an irrigated portion of the Chihuahuan desert, right at the river that forms the border with Mexico. In the camp, we had learned, were children, young teens who one way or another had separated from their families.
2/28/23
Activist groups are scrambling, trying to line up arguments that might persuade an indifferent Biden administration to change course on how it might handle the end of the xenophobic policy known in shorthand as Title 42โฆ.
โฆOnce again from the Trump playbook, and, for those who remember, reminiscent of Catch-22, Biden revives an idea that complicates the already impossible lives of people trying to save themselves.
An Asylum Ban.
2/7/23
๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐ & ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐จ๐ฒ๐๐ฎ๐ฅ ๐ฎ๐ฉ๐๐๐ญ๐ ๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ง๐๐ณ๐ฎ๐๐ฅ๐๐ง ๐๐๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ฌ๐๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐๐ ๐๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐๐๐ซ
After many failed attempts to reschedule an appointment- on Saturday the daughter in law and her children were able to cross into the US.
2/6/23
Executive Summary, ICE Air Flight Report, January 2023
Over the last 12 months, all under President Biden, there have been a likely 7,913 ICE Air flight legs as compared to 4,845 in 2020, a startling, unexpected, and disappointing increase of 3,068 (63%) over 2020 and up 1,789 (29%) over 2021.
2/3/23
We are watching a new season of the anti-immigrant crowd grinding fresh red meat, this time liberally laced with fentanyl hysteria. Although all signs point to a large business that involves using vehicles to move the drug through our ports of entry, those with skin in this game like to point to men and women and children with naught but the meager goods they carry as the purveyors of a potent drug that is the latest moneymaker for an international consortium.
2/1/23
For the better part of December, I traveled with Witness at the Border, in the Journey for Justice Caravan. We started on Boca Chica Beach at the Gulf of Mexico, gathering before the sun rose to hold a candle light vigil and remembering all our brothers and sisters on both side of the border who have been affected by policies of governments who put economic greed, profits and fear over the lives, dignity and humanity of people. We reached the Pacific Ocean at San Ysidro, CA. on International Migrant Day.