Day 14: Tragedy

Today is the last day of the vigil for justice.

All the boats but one were out on the river today when this Border Patrol boat showed up.

A helicopter hovered overhead and then before we knew it, the fire brigade shows up to launch their boat.

These are the people that abBigott allows onto the river to rescue dead bodies.

$7 MILLION dollars of Shame on Indiana

Indiana has sent 50 of that state's national guard to the Texas border for 10 months at the cost of 7 MILLION tax payer dollars.

Day 13: From the River Bank to the Park

After bannering on the river bank, we walked around Piedras Negras a little bit, finding better food and witnessing this part of the city.

a side street in Piedras Negras

Misinformation rife in Mexico also - this looks like a 24 week old fetus, praying. An anti-choice, anti-life, anti-womyn's health propaganda poster hanging on the street.

Banners and light show in small city park in Eagle Pass on a major road. Lots of people pass and honk in support.

Day 12: Fire Ants....and immoral states

I had to plug into electricity last night because of the lack of sun powering my solar system. I ran a cord from the house across the lawn to the street where I am parked, to plug into my camper.

Well, industrious little stinging buggers climbed up the cord and infiltrated my space, including my bed. So I woke up last night when I felt stinging on my arms and legs.

To my horror, I saw hundreds if not thousands of ants crawling around. I spent from 2a.m. until 6a.m. hunting them down and killing them. I also spread all my baby powder around the door and almost every inch of the floor of my camper, behind shelves, fridge, under my beds, etc.

So I missed the action at the river today but helped box food in the afternoon.

So we're told 14 state governors have sent their state national guard out of their state & to the Texas border to assist with Texas breaking u.s.ofa. & international law preventing refugees from seekong asylum as well as preventing border patrol from doing their job.

These are the states thus far that have sent/are sending troops to "protect" our border in Texas from invasion...:

Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Who'd of thought we'd be down here at our border demanding border patrol be reinstated along the Texas border????

Can you tell what state's national guard are in these boats?

Day 11: Seven fucking boats....

The boats have multiplied this a.m. - three border patrol boats and the usual four military boats.

The border patrol boats are all out on the river, but we don't know what this means - if they know people are in the river & in distress, or if they're merely training other BP police, or???

We've been told the border patrol is only being allowed to pick up those refugees in emergency traumas.

It's MUCH cooler today, which means 79 degrees the forecasted high.

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?

Red skies at nite

Red skies at nite, sailors delite - and ours! Hopefully the temps will be cooler tomorrow!

Day 9:

A few more folks have joined us to banner from the Mexico side of the river, as we face at least 5 branches of the military: the Texas National Guard, the Texas State Military Guard, the Army Reserves, State Highway Patrol, and the Border Patrol. Over 200 soldiers are now occupying the people's former park, Shelby Park.

Currently they've a 140 MILLION dollar construction project to house over 2000 soldiers here on the river - soldiers who have no business being here, taking over the job of the Border Patrol.

An installation that will cost the tax payer an addition 14 MILLION a MONTH to run. At least 25 other state governors have vowed to send their state's national guard to Texas, including Florida of course. We've already seen the Florida Fish and Game people on the boat, trolling the river for desperate humans.

Today's 'visitors' came in the white ABBA bus parked there so they weren't politicians, maybe just republican 'tourists'. We were so loud on the opposite bank, they didn't stay long nor did they get on the boats. We're claiming this as a success!

We can't really see that clearly, but 2e think the guy in the red hat is a maga asshole.

New boat from Florida added to the crew of 4 here

Here we are, bannering and doing our best to heckle the u.s. soldiers willing to do this horrific militarization of our border - and the tourists who are doing this reality tv stunt tour.

What - did you think the buoys are gone???

Returning from Piedras Negras, we went down to the river again, this time farther south.

What did you think the buoys are gone? Just because the federal government declared them unconstitutional and ordered the state of texas to remove them, doesn't mean the state complied. Only when Mexico pointed out that the buoys were on the Mexican side of the river, did the state of texas then move them, not out of the river but closer to the u.s. side.

As if the ebb and flow of the river is static.

Not only are these buoys there floating in the water with concertina razors under the surface, but horrific giant round saw blades are lined up in between each buoy.

How about the blades in between each one just in case a child or a womon or a man reaches for them in an attempt to fight the current and keep from drowning?

Then there's the hidden concertina razors ready to shred feet already bloodied from miles and miles of hostile terrain or legs and arms already scraped and broken from being tossed off train roofs or crashing through jungles.

What did you think we don't have armed soldiers, soldiers armed with weapons of war, did you think we're not at war against the unarmed mother and her two children our tax dollars paid for those soldiers to aim their guns at her & her babies to make sure they didn't get to step their toes onto u.s. soil & seek asylum?

Our border is militarized - our southern texas border that is

See the soldier on top of the container, ready to sit and eat his lunch, with his war machine rifle, all behind concertina razors. Do we feel safe now?

I thought this is so typical u.s.ofa. shrouded behind concertina razors and shipping containers - and the u.s.ofa. flag flying freely

Lots of harley-boats full of soldiers patrolling the river, hunting for people, human beings. No drug dealer bring drugs to his u.s. customers, no cartel, no supplier of bodies for u.s serial rapists has to wade across a river to reach their clientele. If we really wanted to stop drug dealers and serial rapists we'd end it here, on this land, in this country by prosecuting the first line buyers and sellers.

This was when the buoys were on the Mexican side.

This is the only 'warning' people are given. It's a joke - it's not on the buoys, not even facing the Mexican side where refugees are coming from.

The buoys were not removed - even tho the feds said they needed to be - but instead they were moved back into the u.s. side of the river. You can see the cement posts that were drilled and then poured into forms on the river, where the buoys sat formerly. Guess what kind of environmental impact study was done before pounding in these posts let alone spreading of the concertina razors under the surface of the river?

Where the fuck are all the environmentalists? Can you only imagine what this awful intrusion in this beautiful river is doing to it???

Piedras Negras

We got to drive deeper into Piedras Negras, Mexico.

So many similarities in housing in Piedras Negras & Accra: stucco or clay or cement homes, bright colors, simple one story structures, fences - maybe more greenery in Piedras Negras but it is a smaller city - 300,000 people to almost 3 million people in Accra.

So much more colorful than cities in the u.s., and much smaller houses. No ugly barbed razors or electric wires surrounding these properties.

Most of these houses are on a main residential street in Piedras Negras - which I learned, after unsuccessfully seeking a view of a black rock, any black rock, but is an apparently huge vein of coal that comes from under the Rio Grande and out through Mexico.

Day 7: Most Wanted

When I first saw this from afar on the outsiide of the door to the shelter, I thought it looked like the wanted posters in the post office. Maybe cartel or gang members, maybe some kind of trouble makers.

And it is like the wanted posters, except not wanted by the police but by their families. We were told with deep sorrow and regret, that these are not even a handful of the missing.

These are only 5 of the hundreds and thousands of people who have fled their homes seeking safety and a new life - and who have 'simply' disappeared, or were made to disappear, along this treacherous route to security.

Day 7: Migrant Shelter Piedras Negras

We visited a 'small' shelter for migrants inside Piedras Negras.

Today, there were 'only' 104 refugees coming from Cuba, El Salvador, Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala.

This shelter is run by catholic nuns. There was a legal room, doctors without borders temporary canopy, a large kitchen, a cafeteria, two dormitories for womyn and children, one for men, and a large cement plaza where most of the people there slept on the hard floor of the plaza with maybe a blanket or two for padding.

Up until December, the nuns took care of 1000 migrants a day. They said the number has diminished drastically daily. Most of the people staying there either have or are applying to have their CBP One appointments.

We learn that on average, it takes 7 - that's SEVEN - months to get an appointment.

I wish everyone could meet these people, so exhausted, sick, injured, and see how deyermined and how hard this journey has been - yet so trusting, believing all they are suffering will be worth it once they can enter the u.s.

How could anyone with any ounce of compassion deny entry into our wealthy country, deny a life maybe a tiny bit better than the one they are fleeing, deny a person so willing to work harder than probable 99% of u.s. people in order to be here?

These incredible, heart-wrenching, beautiful murals were recently painted on the walls of the shelter by migrants, both deported and those waiting for asylum.

The journey, walking, by train with the military and/or border patrol hovering in the helicopter overhead, terrifying and scattering refugees, often getting them separated from their families and/group and the guide.

The artist name & date

This mural is also on the outside wall of the shelter with flags of the countries migrants have fled from

This mural is inside the shelter on a wall - all murals were painted by refugees either hoping to enter the u.s.ofa. or those that have been deported.