Day 10: The criminalizing of refugees

You are looking at 6 people: Two womyn, one who is obviously pregnant, one child, one teenager and two men. They have walked all the way from Ecuador - facing & surviving all unimaginable violence & danger, carrying all their possessions in a plastic bag, a couple of backpacks.

Now they've somehow made it across the Rio Grande to the u.s.ofa. soil. Our national law and international law declares they have the right to seek asylum once they've stepped on u.s. soil.

Governor abBigott flaunts his power in the face of that law. These people should be facing Border Patrol right now. They should have all their possessions taken from them, except what fits in a one gallon plastic bag.

They should be being taken to the border patrol processing center, processed, given a court date, and then taken a shelter where they will have an orientation, get fed, given clothes, shoes, tooth paste; but first they will probably be given some sort of first aid as they often come surviving rape and torture, some with bloodied &/or blistered feet, cuts & bruises, maybe broken bones.

They might spend the night in the shelter, they might buy a bus ticket to San Antonio, they might get on one of abBigott's buses to NYC, Chicago, or Denver.

But they would be as safe as possible in the u.s., cared for at least minimally, and sent on their way.

These 6 people will have to continue walking up river to some place where the Border Patrol is able pick them up - in other words, a place where the military is not guarding or vigilante ranchers are not hunting for them.

Those places are becoming smaller and smaller as abBigott is using not just his state's national guard but unfuckinbelievably other red states are sending their state's national guards down here to endanger the lives of refugees, dump more and more concertina razor into and along longer and longer places along the banks & into the river.

And even more evil, ordering these troops to arrest people & turn them into criminals, stripping them of their legal rights to apply for asylum.

In other words, if the military picks up these people, they are arrested. Period. No talking, no telling their story, no pathway to asylum. And now they have a criminal record.

Once the refugees are criminalized, they are deported. And they can never re-enter the u.s.ofa.

Do you feel safe now?