Journey For Justice December 5th, Day 5: Uvalde to Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras

We head to a shelter in Eagle Pass, the u.s. side of the border where Piedras Negras sits across the Rio Grande in Mexico.

We are there for maybe 20 minutes and in that time at least 5 large school buses full of refugees enter the parking lot and we watch as refugees – mostly men, black or brown – spill out onto the dirt lot, and line up by sex.

They are spoken to in Spanish by the accompanying border patrol officials, whether they speak Spanish or not, and directed to go inside the shelter.

The womyn who work there daily tell us they try to help up to 900 or more refugees every day. These are the refugees who have been picked up by border patrol, processed which includes taking all their personal possessions they are carrying if any and their shoe laces. Then they are saddled with a cell phone now instead of an ankle bracelet – a cell phone that tracks their every movement, a cell phone from which they have to call in daily and at a certain time from the location they are supposed to be at.

So if they cannot charge their phone or for any reason miss their phone call time, or if they are at a location they have not received previous permission to be at, they will then be immediately picked up and either dropped across the border to then be taken back deep into Mexico or sent to some other country.

The womyn tell us they try to feed as many people as possible, often running out of food before they run out of mouths to feed; they provide a bathroom, shower, clothes if available, and help with figuring out where their family or friends are located and if there is a bus that will take them there, providing they can get someone to buy the ticket.

Most refugees have little concept of how large this country is, how far away New York or Detroit is, how they will now make it from Eagle Pass to the place where they will eventually go to immigration court to plead their case – let alone whether they will be allowed to seek asylum here in this country.

She says some come with a hand cut off, an eye gauged out, a leg gone, other scars and evidence of torture and violence often the result of our u.s.ofa. insatiable greed for drugs and the flesh of womyn and children, the labor of men.

Often children and youth are sent over by parents forced by our immigration policies to separate their family in the hopes of finding safety and security let alone food for at least their children.

Some of us stay at the shelter to help prepare lunch. Others of us go to two different bridges: one that people will freely cross over into Piedras Negras as we are amerikkkan citizens and can do so, and easily cross back, passing those hollow-eyed womyn, children and men seeking not just a better life but a life free of the violence fueled in their countries by our insatiable greed for drugs and flesh of womyn and children, and the labor also of men.

The other bridge is where the Rio Grande is shallower certain times of the day or week and people can make it across to u.s. soil if not detained on the Mexican side or picked up by our law enforcement before they reach the u.s. Once they touch u.s. soil, legally they then should have the right to apply for asylum – but too often this is now left up to the individual border patrol or national guard person. Sometimes they are just rounded up and deported back to Mexico.

I choose to go to this second bridge, because it is a 1.5 mile walk but also in case I can witness refugees crossing the river and watch border patrol, videoing them to keep them at least a little under control.