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Abuses continue in Port Isabel:

7/22/2018

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via the Texas Tribune:

Incommunicado in South Texas: Migrant parents await reunification in seclusion

By Jay Root and Shannon Najmabadi, The Texas Tribune July 22, 2018

"Incommunicado in South Texas: Migrant parents await reunification in seclusion" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

BROWNSVILLE — They were awakened in the middle of the night.

Get your things, they were told. You're being moved. Where? They didn’t know. Maybe, if the whispers were right, they were going to another U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in San Antonio.

Half an hour later, at about 4 a.m. Tuesday, a Honduran man The Texas Tribune is identifying as “Carlos” was loaded onto a bus with about two-dozen other migrants, he said. Like him, they all had been separated from their children at the southern border under the Trump administration's now-paused "zero-tolerance" policy. Like him, they figured the sudden relocation meant they were on their way to be reunited.

But after an hour driving in pitch darkness, Carlos said the bus returned to the Joe Corley Detention Facility outside Houston without explanation.

“We asked them what happened and they simply told us that they had canceled the trip,” Carlos told the Tribune in a phone call from the GEO Group-operated facility on Tuesday. "What everybody was hoping was they supposedly were taking us to see our kids, that they were going to reunite us with our kids. That's what we all imagined. We were all happy."

The surprise trip to nowhere was the newest unexplained bump on the road to reunification with Carlos' 6-year-old daughter, Heyli, who is being held at a Southwest Key shelter in Arizona. Another one came this weekend, when Carlos was spotted by a volunteer lawyer wearing civilian clothes inside the secretive Port Isabel Service Processing Center in deep South Texas — some 400 miles south of the Joe Corley detention center.

Since Wednesday, Carlos has been held virtually incommunicado at the Port Isabel facility, designated by the government as the primary removal and reunification center for separated migrant families.

It’s a situation that’s befallen dozens of migrants bused to Port Isabel in the last five days, as Thursday’s court-imposed reunification deadline draws near, say advocates who visited the facility as recently as Saturday.

Six-year-old Heyli at her kindergarten graduation. She was sobbing uncontrollably in a recent video call with her mother. “I never imagined this,
Six-year-old Heyli at her kindergarten graduation. She was sobbing uncontrollably in a recent video call with her mother. “I never imagined this," Heyli can be heard saying.

On the brink of being released from detention and reunited with children separated from them sometimes months ago, migrant parents are being held at the South Texas facility in a sort of limbo — not free to leave, but with limited or no access to phones or commissary accounts that regular detainees get, those advocates say.

Bethany Carson, an immigration researcher and organizer with Grassroots Leadership, an advocacy organization critical of "mass incarceration" and deportation, spoke to two migrants at Port Isabel Saturday. She said they’re being told they’re in a transitory state — “not detained in that place anymore,” but not yet moved to a church or family detention center with their children.

“They're treating them like they're processed out of the facility already but they're still there,” Carson said. “They're still locked up. They're still detained. They can't leave. So all they've done is take away their communication and all of the other things that, according to detention standards, they have rights to.”

An ICE spokesperson said the agency was looking into the situation at Port Isabel; the Tribune will update the story with any response.

"Putting the cart before the horse"

Authorities are putting women in one area and men in another, and the clothes on their backs hint at their fate, according to lawyers and advocates who have visited: Those who are destined for release to a nearby Catholic shelter don plain clothes — often what they were wearing when they crossed the border — typically topped by a white shirt issued to them in detention.

Those without a white shirt may not be so lucky. According to Jodi Goodwin, a local immigration attorney, that means the migrant may make one more stop at a family detention center before they’re deported from the country. (According to government lawyers, some 863 migrant parents separated from their kids are marked for deportation, but a judge has temporarily barred authorities from immediately removing reunited families from the country.)

The government is under a court order to reunite most separated migrant families by July 26, a deadline that looms over the political and legal morass that’s ensued since the federal “zero-tolerance” policy was announced in April. More than 450 of the roughly 2,500 children separated from their families under that policy have been returned to parents or guardians, and different branches of the federal bureaucracy are scrambling to reunite the remaining families in time.

Chaotic and haphazard, it’s an endeavor that involves coordination between multiple agencies, including ICE and the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which oversees separated children housed in contracted shelters across the country.

“It’s a little bit of putting the cart before the horse, because they need the kid here before they can release the parents to reunify them,” Goodwin said. “But ICE — I'm going to give them some credit here — they're busting their butt, and they've gotten the paperwork done quicker than ORR has been able to get the kids down here.”

The migrant parents in limbo at Port Isabel are given a three-letter designation, used internally by some officers, that highlights the uncertainty of their plight: ATW, according to Goodwin, or all the way out.

Except they’re not.

“It says [ATW] on their system when I go to visit them, but they're physically still there,” Goodwin said of her clients at Port Isabel. “I’ve gone twice to see them and the officers tell me, ‘Nope, you can’t seem them, not here … Can’t find them in the system’.”

“I never imagined this"

For the family members and lawyers of those detained at Port Isabel, being cut off from communication just as they were expecting a joyous reunion with their children has prompted fear and panic.

A Salvadoran woman named Claudia, separated from her son Kevin since May 23, was abruptly moved to South Texas from the T. Don Hutto Residential Center near Austin on July 9. She had been calling her lawyer twice daily and remained in regular contact with her sister in Virginia. Then, as with Carlos, the regular communication ceased on Wednesday. When her sister called the facility, she says a guard told her Claudia was no longer there.

Seven-year-old Kevin and his mother, Claudia, are fleeing violence and persecution in their native El Salvador.
Seven-year-old Kevin and his mother, Claudia, are fleeing violence and persecution in their native El Salvador.

“I just became really concerned that she had been moved somewhere and that they weren't updating the online locator and there's something really fishy and troublesome about that,” said her lawyer, Jennifer Walker Gates. “If she hasn't in fact been moved and she's allowed to call but she hasn't been calling, I just think she's becoming really despondent. That's my fear.”

However, a volunteer attorney saw Claudia at Port Isabel Saturday and said she had on a white shirt.

Carlos, the Honduran man, had been trying in vain to call his family members in Central America since June, when he told the Tribune he agreed to be deported out of desperation to see his daughter again. (His lawyer has been fighting to keep him in the country.)

The sudden cutoff in communication at Port Isabel came just as Carlos managed to speak to his wife and parents in Honduras for the first time since May 25, when he turned himself into the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the border illegally with his daughter Heyli.

Through an elaborate system of coordinated times and speaker phones — Carlos' wife, who is also named Claudia, would call one Tribune reporter while Carlos called another — they'd been able to hear each others' voices for the first time in weeks.

Watch more video.

"I was talking to [Heyli],” Claudia told Carlos on a Tuesday phone call.

Carlos: "What did she tell you?"

Claudia: “She’s happy because I told her that they had moved you from the jail and she told me that her caseworker assured her that they were going to be reunited… Don’t worry about [Heyli]. I calm her down. She cries, but I cheer her up. I tell her not to worry.”

The telephone line abruptly cut off with an automated sign-off in Spanish — “Thank you for using GTL [Global Tel Link]" — but Carlos managed to call back, and his wife passed the phone to his mother.

Mother: “Hello son.”

Carlos: “How are you?”

Mother: “We are fine, my son. Don't worry about that, we are fine. Always thinking about you, but here we are passing the time."

Carlos: “Yes, mama, don’t worry about that because soon this torture is going to be over.”

Mother: “Oh, my son, I hope that you get out soon.”

It was the first and so far the only time mother and son have been able to speak since Carlos entered ICE custody.

As parents like Carlos shuffle through various detention centers, their children have been stuck in the same shelters for weeks, waiting for the government to figure out how to reunite them. Though Claudia told her husband that Heyli was optimistic about a reunion on Tuesday, the little girl was sobbing uncontrollably — rubbing her eyes and rocking back and forth — in a video call with her mother on Friday.

Six-year-old Heyli in a video call with her mother, Claudia, on July 20.
Six-year-old Heyli in a video call with her mother, Claudia, on July 20.

“I never imagined this,” Heyli says through tears.

“I know, love,” Claudia says. “But, look, you have little time left there. Don’t cry, love. You’ll be coming back soon.”

But where the reunion will happen — and whether it will be followed by a flight back to Carlos and Heyli's rural Honduran hometown — remains unknown. A volunteer attorney who saw Carlos Saturday said he was wearing a blue button-up shirt and shoes that looked very worn.

He wasn't wearing a white shirt, the attorney said.

Read related Tribune coverage

  • Kids in exchange for deportation: Detained migrants say they were told they could get kids back on way out of U.S.
  • “A very cruel punishment”: A family split by “zero tolerance” won’t try to cross again, mom says
  • This man waited days to join his family in the U.S. and seek asylum. They asked him to turn back. (audio)

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/22/migrant-parents-separated-children-south-texas/.

Value ongoing coverage of the Texas border crisis? Visit The Texas Tribune to learn more about its nonprofit newsroom and how you can support important stories like these.

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Speaking spanish is not illegal

7/16/2018

1 Comment

 
You're blind if this isn't racism playing out right in front of you.  Speaking Spanish does not make probable cause and equate to doing something illegally.
​
I went through border patrol this weekend, they peeked in to the car, saw 4 white women and waved us a long, never even asking if we were citizens. That folks, is racism. Don't think we're not paralleling along with the holocaust.
Post Written by Nichole Miller
Video via Now This
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Lessons Learned from the Cowardly Lion

7/9/2018

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As an activist I often find myself considering what constitutes courage because there's a fairly fine line between bravery and stupidity in my experience.  In my efforts to create positive change, I always try to be conscientious of my capacity for human error and misconception.  I am always questioning myself, my methods, and my motivations.  I think second guessing ones self can be healthy as long as it's not becoming self-destructive.

I honestly believe that one of the scariest things to do in the world today is to be truly honest about who you are, what you believe, and what you've experienced.  We live in a society that prizes artifice over substance in so many cases.  Degrees are prized over actual real world experience.  Image is prioritized over reality.  Profit comes before everything including human life and the well being of the very Earth that gave us life and sustains us.  Our priorities as a society are all screwed up, and and the only way to fix that is if good people refuse to be silenced by the multitudinous oppressions of fear and ignorance that currently dominate our society.  

I have no doubts that it is scary to speak your mind.  I know from personal experience how it can make your whole body shake, your knees go weak, and your stomach turn inside out.  That's never stopped me though (longer than it took me to finish vomiting). 

​Something I don't talk about as often as I should is what it's like to be an introvert with social anxiety who is also a social organizer.  I think a lot of people see me standing in front of a crowd and assume it's because I'm fearless.... but that's not it at all.  I stand there because I am afraid of what will happen to the world and to the marginalized if I DON'T stand there.  I know that I have the means, motivation, opportunity, and privilege to be able to stand there.  Standing in that spot never ever gets less scary or intimidating, but I think the moment you stop doubting yourself is when you begin to lose the way.  Real life heroes are seldom truly the confident cool collected characters Hollywood presents us.  In reality it's usually the quiet ones you'd never expect, and they seldom work alone.  Don't ever think that heroes aren't tired and scared, because they are.   

When you feel overwhelmed or daunted by all the tasks ahead and reforms that need to be made in the name of reducing human suffering and improving the quality of life for every citizen of the United States of America no matter how marginalized... just remember the Wizard of Oz's words to the cowardly lion:
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“You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.” 
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Without a doubt we live in troubled times and now, more than ever, there is always potential consequence for speaking out publicly (whether it be in the form of police harassment, job discrimination, or internet vigilantism).  However, that is exactly why we cannot afford complacency.  If we stay quiet the fear will only get closer and more real.  The gulfs of division will only grow wider, and our society will only grow more fragmented and easy to manipulate, bend, and pervert into forms too terrible to consider (as has happened in different times and places in history such as Germany and even here in the USA during World War 2).

We are farther down the road to perdition than many would like to admit, but we are not yet past the point of no return.  We can change things.  We can join together to speak our minds even if it scares us half to death.... because in the end the truth tends to win out and there is always strength in numbers.  In this day and age speaking your mind can be an act of heroism.  It can inspire others to keep pushing for changes that ultimately reduce human suffering.   Sometimes all it takes is for one person to express a thought... an idea... and then before you know it that idea takes hold and a movement begins.  I've seen it with my own two eyes several times over the last five years.  Thousands of people come out of the woodwork sometimes when one person stands up and says no more.  As Rosa Parks said when asked about her famous refusal to give up her seat on the bus which helped spark the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott:
“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” 
― Rosa Parks
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The great freedom march rally-- Cobo Hall-- June 1963. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Mrs. Rosa Parks, David Boston (Parade Marshall)
​via the New York Public Library Digital Collections
Each and every one of us has that power.  The power to say we are tired.  To tell our politicians "no more".  We all have the power to gather together our friends and family and work together nonviolently in our own unique ways using our own unique skill sets to each tackle a corner of this massive social problem with intelligence, compassion, empathy, and survivor ingenuity. 

Now more than ever Candidates originating from a grassroots level are seeing increased support and interest (such as MJ Hegar and her recent wildly successful viral campaign video).  I believe as Millennials come of age this trend will only continue.  The simple fact of the matter is that Millennials for the most part are very well aware of the concept espoused by the Wizard of Oz.  Real courage is showing up even when you're scared.  Millennials are more politically active than any other generation since the Civil Rights era.  They love a good photo op and aren't afraid to show up and make themselves heard.  They love the internet and are great at leveraging the power of technology.  So I can't wait to see what this generation and our kids today have in store for the future.  I hope positive changes are coming, and that young people especially will remember their true courage and find confidence in themselves when it counts.  This is a vital time to support young activists and the ideals and aspirations of our children. 

We cannot afford to lose any more ground, as evidenced by the atrocities occurring along the border.  Like Rosa parks I am tired in ways I cant even begin to explain in a short blog post.  I can never know the horror of being oppressed for the color of my skin, but as a survivor of human trafficking I know firsthand the horrors of being held prisoner in a powerless situation and being denied basic human dignities such as a warm blanket, a shower, a voice, and food.  I would never wish that experience on another human being and that is why I organized the Flock to the Border event in an attempt to nonviolently speak truth to power and call for an end to the abuses being carried out on children too young to even understand fully the scope of what is being done to them, and to restore some small measure of the dignities stripped from them through small acts of kindness such as replacing essential items like underwear or hygiene supplies that are often taken away and discarded during detainment and providing phone cards to allow them to reconnect with family and friends (click here if you'd like to donate to participate in this action from afar).  

Tom Kiefer Photography from The Arts Foundation on Vimeo.

Courage isn't being fearless.  It isn't trying to fix the whole world with one action.  Courage is saying "We can't fix it all, but what CAN we do to reduce the suffering one human life at a time?" and then doing something, no matter how small and grassroots it may seem at first.  It's standing your ground even when your knees shake and saying "I'm tired.  No more."  It's asking your friends, family, and colleagues to stand with you and share in your truth and help amplify your truth. Courage is supporting your fellow activists and human beings when they find it in themselves to share their truth.  True courage lies within us all. 

In order to find this courage we must stop obsessing about what we can't do and what limitations we face, and ask ourselves what CAN we do?  Can you build a website?  Are you a social butterfly and great at organizing social events?  Do you have an artistic skill that can be used to speak truth in ways that impact the emotions or tell a personal story?  Do you love walking around your neighborhood and meeting your neighbors and talking to them about the things that matter to you?  ALL of these skills would be valued and put to use within this organization or with one of the many amazing organizations I can refer you to.  Please feel free to 
contact the ATX Coven of the Corvid if you would like assistance locating a volunteer opportunity that might be a good fit for you.  

​I believe that somewhere within almost everyone lies a spark of greatness.   It's just a matter of time and opportunity for that spark to catch fire.  Sometimes all it takes is one person speaking their truth and inspiring another person and helping their spark catch fire, and it creates a chain reaction of inspiration and hope that ultimately brings light into the universe.  True courage is speaking the truth even when you are terrified.  It's showing up when you'd rather stay home in bed safe and warm.  It's doing whatever you can, whenever you can, because every effort matters in this great struggle to end human suffering.  None of us can conquer that specter alone.  It's been haunting us since the beginning of time, but one thing we learned early on is that we are stronger together and that truth persists to this day.  The more of us that find our true courage, the better.  It's not about the spotlight anymore.  It's not about winning one political office or political race.  It's not about getting people to attend just one event.  It's about finding hope within ourselves so we can share it with others and gather the strength to unite against all the pain and injustice.  That is true courage, and I wish it for everyone who reads this.  

In closing I would like to remind you all that the Grand Canyon didn't happen overnight during one great flood.  It happened one persistent raindrop at a time flowing one after another over millions of years, and eventually that stubborn trickle became the mighty Colorado river that helped carve one of the largest canyons on the face of the earth (that's above sea level).  
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Post and Word art by Andrea Hughes
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When they went low, she went as high as she could go

7/8/2018

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This year on the 4th of July, an activist named Therese Patricia Okoumou took her advocacy for fellow migrants and refugees to whole new heights with a spontaneous protest during which she climbed the Statue of Liberty with a sign reading "Abolish ICE".  Watch the original CNN report and live footage here:
When asked about her inspirations for this protest during and interview outside the New York City courthouse with CBS she quoted First Lady Michelle Obama: 
"When they go low, we go high, and I went as high as I could go," 

​She went on to elaborate: ​
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"In a democracy we do not put children in cages period.  There is no debating it.  Nothing you could say to me could justify putting children in cages."​

Watch this video for full details about her inspirations, her motivations, and the charges and potential consequences she faces:
I think it's safe to say that the simple image of a Black Woman climbing one of the most iconic symbols of American Freedom is potent. Michael Harriot of The Root compares her actions to metaphors for the actions of civil rights sHeroes Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks.  I have to agree that the images of her being pursued across the surface of the statue of liberty by police is a powerful visual metaphor for the way that Black Women have to constantly struggle to be heard, believed, and taken seriously as they constantly work to elude, outwit, and outmaneuver their oppressors over cultural terrain that many of us would consider difficult if not impossible to navigate.  

​I have tremendous respect for Ms. Therese Patricia Okoumou and her powerful visual statement.  I hope that her action helps inspire and fuel further nonviolent activism momentum across the country.   I can't wait to see what she does in the future.  Read more about her and some history about protests at the statue of liberty here:
6 Things to know about Ms. Okoumou
Word art and Post by Andrea Hughes
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Land of the free, home of the brave?

7/7/2018

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As the situation unfolds along the Texas border and in detention facilities around the nation we are reading stories and hearing accounts about rooms so cold people got headaches, children sleeping on gym mats with only Mylar space blankets in chain link enclosures, people begging for showers, children restrained punitively naked in restraints for two days, handcuffed, and being forcibly medicated without proper parental consent, it's easy to grow numb to the horrors.  However we cannot afford that luxury. 

If you are here reading this, you are someone who has an opportunity to change the course our country is on.  You have the privilege of internet or phone access if you are reading this blog most likely.  You can use your internet and phone access to call out these abuses, and to draw worldwide public attention via social media to the evils being perpetrated against people whose only crime is seeking safety.  Email and phone your representatives. Participate in town halls. Learn everything you can about the issues and educate your friends and neighbors.  You can also volunteer with or donate to some of the great nonprofits listed in our community directory.  I know it's scary... but how can we claim to be the land of the free and the brave if we can't even treat asylum seekers and refugees with dignity and respect for their human rights?   How can this be the land of the free and the home of the brave if we stand by silently while innocent children are being incarcerated under inhumane conditions and subjected to torture?  The time is now to make a stand, to talk to your representatives, your family, your friends, and your co-workers.  Remember that personal stories have the power to connect us emotionally, and to help us find courage in the unabashed bravery of some of these migrant and refugee parents who carried their children thousands of miles to safety.  
​
Advocating for migrants and refugees isn't scary.  Scary is traveling thousands of miles across rough terrain carrying every supply you and your child(ren) need to survive, and urging them onward towards that faint glimmer of hope of asylum because no matter what you know that home is the mouth of a shark or the barrel of a gun.  People don't just up and abandon their countries for no reason.   What would it take for you to pick up your children and a few belongings and walk with them for thousands of miles?  How much fear, violence, and desperation would it take to push you to make a grueling and potentially deadly journey carrying only the little people you hold most dear?  You can read some facts about why asylum requests from people fleeing Latin American countries are on the rise here.

Imagine the retraumatization both the children and parents face when they are detained by men with guns and thrown in cages.   That's bad enough in and of itself but to then allow medical abuse, sexual assault, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and physical neglect to occur is unconscionable.  Our country is failing asylum seekers and refugees, and committing crimes against them by stripping them of their children without any just cause and with no plan for reunification.  The backlog in the immigration system is getting even worse.  The records that would have helped reunite the children separated with their parents have in many cases been lost or destroyed, and now the government is talking about how they will have to do DNA tests to verify that kids belong to parents which creates a major privacy nightmare for those families going forward, since the DNA information can be used to conduct surveillance on the children for the rest of their lives according to RAICES.

Hear a migrant from Honduras speak about the conditions she encountered in the detention facility at McAllen (which we will be protesting during our Flock to the Border event):
How can we look ourselves in the mirror and know we sat by silently while this abuse takes place on American soil?  In 10 years will we look back and claim we were "Just following orders" like the Germans after the fall of Nazi Germany?  It is scary as hell to disrupt the status quo, but in this case it is absolutely necessary.  It's scary to take a stand and try to educate people about the fact that the abuses going on in these facilities are even worse than those that occurred in the Japanese internment camps during World War 2.  We barely made it 60 years without making the same mistakes of succumbing to petty fear and hatred all over again.   

However, whatever repercussions I may fear for my activism in the long run are absolutely nothing compared to what most migrants and refugees face to arrive here in the first place, and then to have them face such horrors, abuses, and denial of due process in detention is unconscionable.  I cannot sit by idly no matter how scary it is for me to speak out on this issue in famously conservative Texas where the battle to stamp out racism is very much alive and raging with over 
55 active hate groups currently operating in the state of Texas.  Some even put the number even higher and Texas has one of the highest concentrations of hate groups in the nation.  Some of the most vitriolic of these groups focus their hatred specifically on migrants and refugees.   Some of these groups are even going so far as to organize to support members so they can run for office.  Find out more in the video:
Now more than ever we must keep our eyes on the situation and find the courage to keep advocating for those being abused.  The hatred brewing and the abuses being committed are very real.  This is not theoretical. We cannot afford the luxury of becoming numb and allowing ourselves to become complacent about atrocities.  Please consider joining us in McAllen on July 14, 2018 for the Flock to the Border day of action.  If you cannot join us in person but still wish to support our action and efforts to hold the Texas and US government accountable for these abuses against migrants and refugees, please consider making a donation (even a dollar helps)!   This problem is far too big and complex for any one person to solve, but if we gather together, cooperate, and keep talking about the issues that matter eventually together we can achieve change through educating the public and exerting political pressure on government officials (because ultimately they do need our votes to stay in office).   

​And, lest you make the mistake of thinking this doesn't, won't, or can't ultimately affect you or someone you love... I would like to impart this little reminder:
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"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- 
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

​- 
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
Post written by Andrea Hughes
Word art by Andrea Hughes
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Stop the Violence

7/6/2018

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We simply cannot rip children from mothers fleeing violence. We cannot take part in hurting families. 

Many HT [human trafficking] Survivors come from abusive families or foster care, we know first hand the damages that can create. If we do nothing, if we stand by and let this happen, we aren't doing anything better than what was done to us and we're setting people up for hardships like trafficking. -  Lisa Lynn via Facebook 
 

#Solidarity #StopTheViolence
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AP Report: U.S. Army is quietly discharging immigrant recruits

7/6/2018

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Excerpt via SAN ANTONIO (AP) — "Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.  The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures."
Read Full Article
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taking notes from the scottish

7/5/2018

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The Scottish have been resisting oppressors since the Roman empire.  This video came out about a year ago, but it's just as relevant today.  One of the most powerful ways to resist oppressors is by telling the truth about them.   So lets join together, stand our ground, and keep telling the truth about what's being done to refugees and migrants along the border!  Trump is a liar and a fear monger, and innocent people are paying the price of his vanity.  
Post by Andrea Hughes
​Video by Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
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The Trauma of separation

7/4/2018

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Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times:​
In the living room of the one-bedroom Van Nuys apartment, the boy tried to explain, in the words of a 3-year old, what happened to his father.
“Papá cae en piso,” he said, turning briefly from a game on his mother’s phone.
Dad fell on the floor.

Andriy Ovalle Calderon recounted the moment his father was restrained by Customs and Border Protection officers four months ago as he tried to cross into Texas illegally.
The boy spent more than a month with a foster family in California before being released in April to his mother, who separately had turned herself in at a port of entry with her younger son. Claudia Calderon has been allowed to stay with her mother-in-law while she waits for an immigration judge to hear her asylum claim.
Her husband, Kristian Francisco Ovalle Hernandez, was deported to Guatemala.
At night, Andriy sometimes wakes up screaming in the bunk bed he shares with his mother and baby brother. When he started to wet the bed, Calderon put him back in diapers. Sometimes he throws his tiny body down on the floor, hands behind his back, acting out what happened to his father.

As federal agencies work on reuniting more than 2,000 families that remain apart, affected by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, many children are struggling to cope with the aftermath of the separations.
A 1-year-old taken from his father in November still wakes up crying, quieting only when his mother reassures him that she is there. In the first week of living in a Jefferson Park apartment, he would grab his mother’s legs and start to cry if someone came to visit.

“Those are absolutely classic signs of acute trauma,” said Dr. Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist. As a volunteer at an immigrant respite center in McAllen, Texas, Cohen identified and helped traumatized children and adults separated in detention.  
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"Home" by Warsan Shire

7/4/2018

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Home

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
​
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here ​
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