Journey For Justice December 11th, Day 11 fuckin Columbus NM

We've crossed over the Texas border into New Mexico where there is a small crowd there of those local folks providing humanitarian aid to immigrants.

We have been told there is a monument there at a memorial park feet from the border crossing that was put up in 2000 in order to protest u.s.ofa. immigration policies.

As we approach, I see it is a giant cross painted white with flowers and hearts looping around the cross.

The closer we get, we can see there is also a piece of granite almost headstone shaped at the base of the cross. We hear that the stone was just put up there this morning only minutes before we arrived. And that it replaced a smaller one.

This new headstone began with a paragraph remembering the migrants who have attempted to immigrate to the u.s.

And directly under that there is a paragraph also honoring the fuckin border patrol and thanking them for 'protecting' our border - the people who are hunting down, capturing and often killing those very migrants who are attempting to immigrate.

Marina and I - along with a few others - are also incensed. Protecting our border from what? From whom?

We hear that the original headstone did not mention border patrol at all but only those attempting to migrate and trying to hold accountable our awful immigration policies.

We are very vocal about our disappointment and how offensive this is. We confront the local woman who has claimed responsibility for the wording on the stone. She says she's the daughter of immigrants, while Marina states more than asks "and the wife of a border patrol agent", which she does not deny.

She defends her honoring border patrol by asking us "who do you think we call when we're in trouble?"

I say maybe your grandmother, or neighbor, or sister. She enthusiastially retorts "the border patrol" as if she's summoning the ghost busters.

We don't really have much time to talk with her but while the 'dedication ceremony for this horrific stone was going on, we have been amplifying the discontent and discomfort some of the local humanitarian aid workers were expressing.

I can't even take a picture of the awful thing, let alone the buildings were people cross. Columbus is a 'town' (I use the word loosely) of 1,450 people. If you could see exactly how desolate the landscape is, you would be shocked (not) that 100 MILLION dollars was recently built to monitor the handful of immigrants that might cross here. Most likely the ones who cross are the 1400 Columbus-ians.