Interfaith Welcome Coalition invites people of conscience to a powerful action that begins this Sunday, January 12, and continues “until the policy of MPP [Migrant Protection Protocols] is reversed and asylum rights restored.”
Witness and Protest
WHERE: Brownsville, TX / Matamoros, MX
WHEN: On January 12, 2020, we begin a sustained presence
WHY: Remain in Mexico (MPP)
PLEASE JOIN US at the Texas-Mexico border beginning on January 12, 2020 to highlight the growing humanitarian crisis among refugees and asylum seekers caused by U.S. immigration policy.
Activists will gather in Brownsville, TX to protest the Justice Department’s “tent courts.” We hope to support the ACLU in their efforts toward legal transparency and fairness. Activists with passports may also cross the bridge into Matamoros, Mexico to bear witness to the life-threatening living conditions of migrants who have been pushed back into Mexico.
Join us on the ground to bring broad public attention to “MPP,” the Migrant Protection Protocols. MPP has forced children and families back into very dangerous conditions in Mexico. The protest will continue as long as citizens of conscience appear.
According to Camilo Perez Bustillo of Hope Border Institute and Stanford University, Witness at the Border founder Josh Rubin “exemplifies the kind of vision, courage, and commitment that is needed to turn back the tide against the cruelties that are inherent in the immigration policies promoted by the Trump administration.”
On January 7, Rubin posted this call to the Witness: Tornillo. Target: MPP Facebook page:
LET THEM CROSS
They are camped along the river bank, the south bank. Smoke rises from the clay stoves they have built to cook food that somehow was purchased with scant resources from a store 45 minutes away. The view from the south bank, across the muddy river, deep enough to bathe in, is of the tent courts rising into the sky on the north bank.
Those tent courts hold their fate. And their fate is nearly certain. The chances of being granted asylum are slim to none. But, just as people with enough loose change buy themselves lottery tickets, people with little choice hang on to hope. Perhaps lightning will strike…
And anyway, what else is there to do? Here by the river, they can band together with others for protection, and there are volunteers pulling their wagons full of food and clothing and, when needed, medicine. Pedialyte when small children suffer diarrhea, to keep them from dehydration. It is a long way back to Honduras, or Guatemala, and what little resources they have must be shepherded, to keep life and limb together while they wait.
In Spanish, the word esperar means to wait. It also means to hope. They are waiting. They are hoping. The end of this policy of deliberate cruelty is their only hope.
Shall we gather at the river?
Jan. 12.
Interested in witnessing? Fill out Witness: MPP Sign Up Sheet for travel info and coordination.
For more info, write to witnessmpp@gmail.com.
On Facebook, follow Witness: Tornillo. Target: MPP.
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