A U.S. Border Patrol facility in El Paso is overflowing with asylum-seekers who’ve been needlessly detained far past reasonable processing times, with families and children being held for weeks or months on end. The processing facility is estimated to be at 395 percent capacity, and the situation is so bad that asylum-seekers, including children, are now being contained behind fencing and barbed wire under the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry bridge.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan spoke outside the facility on Wednesday, calling it a humanitarian crisis and shamelessly appearing to use asylum-seekers as props for the press conference, conspicuously marching them past the gathered media.
Missing from this shameful display is the truth that most asylum-seekers intentionally seek out Border Patrol agents to turn themselves in so that they can start the process of legal immigration, which they have a legal right to do, something that continues to escape Republicans.
While the Border Patrol and Republicans use this footage to garner headlines about the growing humanitarian crisis along the border, they leave out critical facts—first and foremost that this is a crisis of their own making. They have deliberately slowed the processing of these asylum cases as a means to discourage others from Central America from making the dangerous trek for a chance at a better life. Jud Murdock, acting assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, made the admission during testimony to Congress in December 2018.
The cruelty of holding these children and families who are escaping violence and poverty is entirely by design. The United States has the capability to humanely and expeditiously process these applicants’ asylum claims, which they are bound to do by U.S. law, and they choose to inflict maximum pain instead. This. Is. Not. Right. Reports BuzzFeed:
"The situation at the southern border is further proof President Trump’s border security and immigration policies are a complete failure, and his Administration deserves much of the blame for making this humanitarian crisis worse," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat. "The Department of Homeland Security continues to block families trying to present themselves at our ports of entry, pushing them to areas between the ports of entry and adding additional stress to our border and immigration system. There is no legitimate reason for migrants to be held in horrid conditions or encamped under bridge."
At the press conference, McAleenan said 40 percent of border agents are taking care of medical issues, and the severity of the situation continues to mount.
In recent days, agents have seen babies with fevers of 105 degrees, a 2-year-old who suffered a seizure in the desert, a 19-year-old woman who needed life-saving surgery, and a 40-year-old man who had multiple organ failure, McAleenan said.
McAleenan used the press conference to sound the alarm about the crisis without ever noting the U.S. government is purposely holding these families unnecessarily. Does this look like America to you?
As Daily Kos staff writer and fearless immigration advocate Gabe Ortiz informs us, survivors of the camps the U.S. used to detain Japanese-Americans during World War II, led by Dr. Satsuki Ina, who was born in one such camp , are planning to protest in Texas on March 30.
Ina said she and others have organized this protest “to remind America that unjust mass incarceration of children and families is a tragic repetition of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans in a climate of hate and war-time hysteria. Justified in today’s immigration hysteria, we are hearing again, similar claims of ‘economic threat,’ ‘spies and terrorists,’ ‘unassimilable’ race and religion, etc., echoed in today’s rhetoric calling for bans and walls. We will not be silent.”
“We will not be silent.” None of us should be silent. The time has come to speak up forcefully and pressure the Trump administration to end this program of maximum cruelty. Everything about it is un-American and antithetical to the basis of our government. Former American leaders were so committed to the idea of welcoming immigrants that this sonnet written by Emma Lazarus is inscribed in the base of the Statue of Liberty, a beacon of immigration and a symbol of America.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
How far we have fallen from these ideals. It’s time to take action to stand up for these families and children at the border. Their lives are at stake. They deserve better, and you have the power to pressure your elected representatives to take action TODAY. Please take one or two minutes of your day to pick up the phone and contact your members of Congress.