IMMIGRATION | DIVERSITY
There Is Hope for Ending Cruelty Towards Immigrants
7 behind-the-walls stories collected on “Illumination-Curated”

What do Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and Dr. Jill Biden have in common? Not only are they soon to be the Vice President and the First Lady. Not only are they smart women whose voices and actions will help shape new directions in the US for the coming four years. And not only are they mothers. Significantly, they each have witnessed personally the suffering of immigrants.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has met with mothers at the Otay Mesa Immigration and Detention Facility in San Diego, California, who were despairing from being separated from their children. “Heart-broken”, she called what she saw and heard “crimes against humanity”.¹
Dr. Jill Biden has walked through muddy fields to visit the Matamoros refugee camp. Located across the border from Brownsville, Texas in the dangerous state of Tamaulipas, two thousand people live there midst hundreds of tents and tarps. She appeared shocked; at the end of her visit she said, “It’s not who we are as Americans. We are a welcoming nation, but that’s not the message that we’re sending at the border.”²
What they each witnessed first-hand was the current US treatment of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. It is considered torture by the United Nations Conventions Against Torture. Articles of the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees are dedicated to ensuring unity of the refugee family. The US Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) prohibits “the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of persons under custody or control of the United States”³.
The following articles reveal realities that shocked me when I learned about them. The writing began after I headed a project to write cards to children in detention centers in El Paso, and traveled to El Paso for a visit. In the process, I made contacts with dedicated advocacy organizations which are linked in lists of organizations and government offices within many of the articles.
The stories are journeys in words that can hopefully lead you, the reader, on a path to join your hope, voice or prayer to support the incoming administration’s goal to stop the torture of immigrants as soon as possible.
Thousands of bones: danger lies ahead in the Sonoran desert.
Betsy asked, “Why don’t we make tiny cards to give to the little children through the wire cages?”
I adapted this poem to express love to separated children, so that they could imagine it was from their mother or father. It is in English, and translated into Spanish.
Activists from all over the US joined a “Jericho Walk” circling the holding center in El Paso.
Reporting led to deporting. Women allege systematic harrassment and sexual assault in detention.
The Holy Family and saints can use some help on the ground to find hundreds of missing children, youth, and parents.
A short, heart-to-heart appeal to end the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers, migrants and refugees
Thanks so much for stopping by, reading and reflecting.
Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama (Archives), Katie Couric, Sarah Towle, Aimée Gramblin, CR Mandler MAT, brini, Tree Langdon
