On Tuesday, July 31, 2018, a group of grandparents departed New York City in a caravan, and headed across the country with a plan of making it to McAllen, Texas by August 6. McAllen, Texas, is where the U.S.’s largest “family detention” center is. The group calls themselves Grannies Respond and they are bringing love and decades of fight with them in the debate over our current white supremacist policies of family separation. Grandparents and grandparent figures have always served an important place in every meaningful society this planet has ever seen; and this show of resistance is an attempt to balance out the ignorance that is ruling the day.
“Grandparents often teach their children and grandkids morality and give them a sense of right and wrong. The cruel and inhumane way that immigrant children and their families are being treated is wrong and immoral. We can’t sit still and watch children being ripped from the arms of their moms and dads. Children do not belong in cages and internment camps. These practices can cause irreparable harm to children. We have a moral obligation to act. We are riding to the border with a simple message: reunite families, end family detention, and treat all human beings with respect and dignity. We are delighted to have the support of Lawyer Moms of America during our journey,” said Roya Salehi, one of the founding Grannies of Grannies Respond.
The caravan plans to stop in Reading, Pennsylvania; Louisville, Kentucky; Montgomery, Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Houston on their way to McAllen, Texas. Each stop will means rallies and vigils and volunteer organizing. At every stop they plan on adding more and more grannies to the caravan as they travel down to Texas. Because that’s how you do it!
Grannies Respond has teamed up with Veteran Service Corps (VSC), a group who genus came during the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline at Standing Rock.
"Veterans did not spill blood in countless battles to see our own country cage babies and children, for ANY reason. Veterans are mothers and fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends of families, still ready to defend against enemies, both foreign and domestic. A terrible wrong has been dealt in the name of America, and I am proud to join a movement of fellow veterans and grandmothers to help innocents live without fear of tyranny, the persecuted find a place of safety, and the American people regain values of compassion and empathy,” says granny Danna J. Roberts, Chief Master Sergeant, USAF (ret).
Along with local law enforcement groups pulling away from ICE, the clear inhumanity of our attorney general and his Führer’s policies are as clear a view of how evil this administration is.
You can follow along with the grannies as they cross the country and ask people to meet them in Texas on their Facebook page. You can find where you might be able to join their caravan over on their website here.
You can go over to a community diary here to discuss more about these patriotic grannies.