Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #WitnessTornillo
Most recents (12)
Suzanne Conti Martin posts-It has been 11 days since I returned from border. I would be lying if I didn't say that I am having a tough time processing what I witnessed. It will take some time. Many people have been asking me "so, what was it like at the border?" 1/12
I was at a fundraiser the other night. A woman kept asking me "come on! what was it like?? I want to hear about it".. but I find myself brushing off the question, giving a 1 sentence answer like "oh, it was a great experience" and then I swallow hard and change the subject.2/12
When I do start to talk about it, I get emotional and can't go into details. Many of you know I have worked at a crisis shelter for children in Tucson. I have spent years volunteering at the Lighthouse shelter to feed those in need in Annapolis.3/12
Margaret Murphy posts-This is Nazi Germany USA. None of us is being alarmist, we are just paying attention. I was not prepared to encounter fascism & white supremacy sweep into power & change long established laws & definitions of who is an American.1/
We must not fatigue or shut down under the onslaught (I know, those of us who crave justice, logic, & democracy are destabilized and watching the abuse of innocent people is highly traumatic & stressful).2/
We must come through for each other & for the ideals of democracy, diversity, & checks & balances. Corruption, hate, authoritarianism, & human rights abuses & brutality must not be the last word. businessinsider.com/trump-us-troop… 3/3 #htt #WitnessTornillo #TargetHomestead #ProtectFlores
WITNESS JOSHUA RUBIN reports-When someone gets a job at Homestead prison for migrant children, they are required to cut all ties to social media. To close down their FaceBook accounts, to give up their Instagram, to stop using Twitter. 1/7 
That’s what will happen 2 those who earn their blue T-shirt’s, their caps, & start carrying their seethrough backpacks 2 work, once they clear low hurdle 2 become member of staff that is asked 2 enforce & carry out inhumane policies of R punitive government...2/7
...forcing children 2 live in overcrowded & grim buildings, trailers & tents of this concentration camp in south FL. Unsurprisingly, it is hard 2 keep enough people working there. So, this week another job fair takes place at small disused bank building right outside Gate 1. 3/7
WITNESS JOSHUA RUBIN reports-We have learned that some kids inside Homestead gulag are in quarantine with chicken pox in a child’s prison described as overcrowded when there were fewer than half the number that are inside now. 1/5
New tents are going up, new employees are being hired, and a huge new building has been consumed by the expansion. A huge parking lot added. Traffic jams at shift change. Backups nearly to the turnpike. How would ambulances get in when it gets tied up like that, we wonder.2/5
And always on the mind of witnesses as we watch the children from our stepladders, what would happen in a hurricane?
3/5
3/5
Yesterday began with an assault on the witnesses that conduct a vigil outside the largest federal child prison in the country. Outside the prison, which sits on the edge of an Air Reserve base in Homestead, Florida, street parking is scarce.1/9
To conduct the vigil, we have been parking on a verge that runs along county road, while the employees of the prison camp pull their cars into lots behind the tarped fences, showing their IDs as they drive past security guards.2/9
But yesterday morning employees were turned away as they showed up, and directed to park where we have set up our camp, along the county verge. And they followed those instructions and tried to crowd us out.3/9
WITNESS ANNE BRIDGMAN posts-I left Homestead this AM. And I left part of my heart there w/the children & teens who R interred there. I arrived at prison shortly after 9, unlocked a stepladder, & carried it 2 R viewing area. 1/7
Over next hour, I watched as about 2 dozen groups of adolescent boys, anywhere from 8 to 20 youth per group & lined up single file, walked w/guards from one tent 2 another.
As on previous days, boys waved & made heart signs in air by joining their hands together.2/7
As on previous days, boys waved & made heart signs in air by joining their hands together.2/7
And they blew kisses my way. They look 4 us now. I heard singing from a nearby tent. Children singing songs in Spanish. From the field, a tall teenager dressed in a red jacket blew me an elaborate kiss &... 3/7
Maybe unconsciously I have given myself no break during several weeks I have spent in Homestead. Although unlike at Tornillo, I leave at night, only 2 rtn in morning, parking across from main entrance & unloading chairs and stepladders and banners from the back of my car.1/7
No break, in some sort of acknowledgment of the indefinite prison term the children inside suffer and live. Marty keeps trying to get me to take a drive with him down to Key Largo for a nice lunch, and so far, it always seems to me that I will be gone too long.2/7
I am being foolish. Even with frequent visits to the place along the fence, where we set up our stepladders and wave and exchange gestures with the kids inside, no one would miss me for a couple of hours. The guards, who ring the perimeter and watch us all the time... 3/7
WITNESS TRACY FRANK posts-"Do U know R own government says NO KID SHOULD B HERE MORE THAN 20 DAYS? Some R here 9 MONTHS. It's 4 PROFIT." Some will smile & nod a bit but if they're alone U may B surprised by response. 1/4
1 EE made direct eye contact & quietly, careful not 2 show any expression, said, "I know."
Some of EEs R potential whistle blowers; they're so disturbed by what they've seen they will reach out 2 U. 2/4
Some of EEs R potential whistle blowers; they're so disturbed by what they've seen they will reach out 2 U. 2/4
At very end of shift change, someone leaving bravely stopped their vehicle across from us & rolled down their window 2 say, "When kids R sick-really sick-all they give them is Tylenol. Education is terrible. It's terrible." 3/4
Arma Global Services. They wear reversed flags on their sleeves; do military base support around the country, perhaps the world. Had 2 hire a lot of people 2 guard internal & external checkpoints, cruise roads in carts & trucks at the largest child migrant prison in the country.
Not much time for training it seems. Sometimes, all it takes to trigger a Keystone Cops flurry of activity is for a lone protestor with a sign to wander down a public road to wave at the children inside. Who often wave right back, by the way.
Golf carts scurry to the scene of the “crime.” Warnings are issued. Trucks pull up parallel so the drivers (the supervisors of the guards get to drive trucks) can consult. What are they consulting about?
When the children who are kept behind the fences & in the tent prisons of Homestead reach the age of 18, they are taken out in chains. Their ankles are chained to their wrists and they are moved to adult detention. Until then, they spend their days in a strange sort of suspense.
They wait while a conspiracy between the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement goes through a procedure that aims at three things.
It aims at luring and catching sponsor families in the U.S. who may be undocumented, so that they can be deported. And it serves its second purpose, to punish children as a warning to desperate people in Central America. Third purpose: to make some rich people richer.
This is about children being held inside the fences, barracks & tents in an influx shelter (read: prison camp). It is not about squabbles between guards & a few folks that have come to bear witness to this atrocity on the edge of an Air Force base in the hot sun of south Florida.
So, it is with considerable relief that I can tell those reading here that we appear to have reached an accommodation with the local police & the guards at this camp that will allow us to focus our attention where it belongs: on the children inside.
Some of them have been inside for more than 9 months. We can see them over the fence. We can show them signs that say No Están Solos. We can wave.
And they can wave back. And call out to us.
And they can wave back. And call out to us.
Long thread — Originally posted on Facebook
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CHILDREN’S INTERNMENT CAMP IN TEXAS
Fox Valley Faith Leaders Lead Witness and Protest
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CHILDREN’S INTERNMENT CAMP IN TEXAS
Fox Valley Faith Leaders Lead Witness and Protest
[Fox Valley, WI, December, 2018] Currently there are 14,000 migrant children being detained in the United States, away from their families, more than any other time in our history. More than 3,000 children and youth are now being held in Tornillo, Texas.
#WitnessTornillo
#WitnessTornillo
The number of children in the internment camp at Tornillo has rapidly expanded from the original 360 children detained there in June. Though only designed for short term use, the deadline keeps getting extended & the camp continues to grow by the day.
#ChristmasInTornillo
#ChristmasInTornillo
