My second Rio Grande Valley Texas book reading! to be continued

My second reading tonite, this time in Brownsville. And this time I’ve handed out flyers all week, inviting people to come.

Only three people show up tonite, and one is a two year old. But they have driven over 45 miles to get here. I give my short version of my book and try to meet the needs of the mother, who is trying to listen and participate while her son also demands her attention. Like all mothers, she’s great at multi-tasking.

They are local people although I get the feeling that the mother would rather spread her adventurous wings and experience other parts of the country if not the world.

PACR/HARP and Third Country Agreements

"These are two different policies:
One is called either the PACR, Prompt Asylum Claim Review for asylum seekers not from Mexico, or HARP Humanitarian (NOT) Asylum Review Process for Mexicans - they are denied due process and do not see a judge while their asylum claim is fast-tracked, which means they are often given less than 10 minutes to make a phone call to family or even a lawyer. They can be denied asylum and deported, all within 10 days. They are deported back to the country they are fleeing from, regardless of the danger. Their only option is to appeal to a Judge, but they don’t know they have that option, nor are they told.

Third Country agreements refers to the denial for the right to seek asylum in the US and they are immediately sent to Guatemala and soon, Honduras, to allegedly seek asylum there.
 
Flights from Brownsville, El Paso, Mesa, AZ, etc include those who were denied asylum in PACR and those who were denied the right to seek asylum in the US in third country agreements. It’s all evil, but they’re separate programs for deportation."

She calls me abuela

From the exquisite sunrises and sunsets, the fierce determined presence of Yalui Village to the demoralized witnesses of Brownsville and the stranded abandoned hopeful interred in the Matamoros refugee camp – a hope that we on this side of the border know is a lie for 99.96% – the multi-leveled, contrasting if not contradicting realities merge and collide inside my mangled heart.

On the bridge tonite, we stand to the left, in the line of u.s. citizens returning across the border, the line that is short and moving fast, even though our small group is stationary. Next to us on the right side of the narrow walk-way is the long line of brown people crossing the border who are not u.s. citizens.
I overhear a white male responding to the protests of some womyn he is with, calling this duel system of entrance to our country unfair, that allows for a moment reinforcing our superiority and the inferiority of others who have to stand for hours. He assures them it is like this everywhere, remembering when he had to stand in the long line for non-citizens entering India while the line of citizens streamed past.
I have to point out the difference is he has no fear, no apprehension and certainly no doubt that after standing in the line at the boundary of almost any country in the world, his u.s.ofa. passport will give him free access eventually.

Our particular u.s.ofa. line is stalled, although others can quickly pass around us if they want & if they have their passports. We are standing with two families: two mothers who have three children between them – three disabled children.

The amazing, phenomenal lawyer, a womon, the daughter of refugees herself, who has dedicated over thirty years of her life to helping refugees at our borders, has asked us to stand behind these families while we wait for fuckin border patrol to decide to allow them to cross into our country.

You might know that, first penned in Dec 2018, and inflicted on all those who’ve come to our borders since July 16^th of last year, tRump has banned asylum seekers – do you understand that, BANNED many asylum seekers…. – from entering our country.

As with all the orwellian misleading lies, this ‘new’ policy is called the MPP: supposedly Migrant fuckin ‘Protection’ Protocol. It might be ‘protection’ for rich white men making money off human suffering, but it is not protection at all for migrants but instead certainly torture, rape, death.

There is an exemption to this ban against refugees: persons with disabilities and/or illnesses so both of these tiny mothers bundled in so many layers they appear chubby but whose small thin faces mix exhaustion, apprehension with a tinge hope could and should be allowed into our country with their children tonite.
We are waiting, standing in support of these families, showing border patrol that they are not alone and we are watching. An abundance of press has also showed up, shoring up hope that surely these men cannot deny these families the little respite crossing the border will immediately afford them.

One mother has a little girl who is 7 years old. She will die by the time she is 11. She has some kind of brain malformation. She has already spent several months of her short life dragging her little wounded body hundreds of miles, sleeping on the dirt in the wind, rain, and cold across from the Rio Grande, under the shadow of the towering 30 foot iron fence posts wrapped in barbed wire.

The little girl who smiles at me, tugging my shirt until I bend over, positioning us nose to nose, reaching her hands up to pat either sides of my cheeks, and calls me abuela.