Democracy Now! Broadcasted protest “Voices from Brownsville Texas”

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rownsville—at the southernmost tip of Texas on the northern bank of the Rio Grande directly north and across the border from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico—

… “one of the fastest growing manufacturing sectors” with 

… “one of the highest rates of poverty” in the United States of America.

Brownsville, Texas: “pro-business,” cheap living.

Two voices in DN’s broadcast

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everend Dr. Helen Boursier, volunteer chaplain working with refugees seeking asylum, collecting and documenting stories, testimonies of the migrant mothers.

USA’s “systemic culpability” thus “moral responsibility”

In the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras region), she said, what’s happening is “because of drugs”

• The USA is the “number one importer of drugs”
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• The USA is a gang exporter: “‘we’ don’t want the bad boys so we send them down there, the very gangs that have become an army to prey on the children.”
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• “We (Americans) pay for the drugs with stolen guns that are licensed and registered in the United States” (Immigrations Customs Enforcement docs cited). 
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• North Americans are therefore “contributing” to Central Americans’ problems.

“We are connected. We are part of their problem. And we need to be part of a humanitarian solution.” — Reverend Dr. Helen Boursier—

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ndocumented Immigrant Tania Chávez with La Unión del Pueblo Entero raised and residing in McAllen, Texas

Trapped within checkpoints and a border wall

·       “Living in the United States as an undocumented immigrant, especially in the border community,” is being “caged within the confinements of the checkpoints.”

·       “You can’t get out.” “You are caged within the confinements of the border wall and the checkpoints …within 200 miles.”

·       Whenever you look at educational opportunities, employment, you can’t get past checkpoints.” This “means driving around with Border Patrol” and “with DPS” (Texas Department of Public Safety).

Every trip north to San Antonio and to Austin demands security checkpoint-interrogation—

“Are you a U.S. citizen”?

“Verify your legal status in this nation” a process limiting “access to healthcare, education, employment opportunities for people living in the border community.”

Tania Chávez recounts a little girl needing surgery and is accompanied by her mother approaching a checkpoint. Her mother was detained, taken into custody by Border Patrol; handcuffed and made to remain in handcuffs at her child’s bedside and “until they (mother and daughter) were returned to the valley, then processed at a processing center.”

Sources

June 29, 2018 Democracy Now! Broadcast “Voices from Brownsville Protest: We Have a Moral Responsibility to Help Asylum Seekers” https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/29/voices_from_brownsville_protest_we_have

February 17, 2015 Rio Grande Guardian International News Service “Don’t lose hope, LUPE tells immigrant community” by Steve Taylor: “LUPE’s position was articulated by community activist Tania Chavez at a news conference held outside the federal courthouse from which Judge Andrew S. Hanen announced his injunction against deferred action.” https://riograndeguardian.com/dont-lose-hope-lupe-tells-immigrant-community/

Brownsville, Texas, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville,_Texas

Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB