Thanks for this harrowing account Sarah and your valuable eyewitness testimony for an event that is desperately in need of further scrutiny. Would love to know who gave the message to the bus companies that the only tickets available were to Ciudad Acuña. I think Alfredo Corchado with the Dallas Morning News probably got closest with his coverage on what was happening from the Mexican governmental side of this.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Melissa! I really appreciate it -- and the tip to Alfredo's reporting. I agree this incident deserves further scrutiny -- particularly with regard to who was behind the bus company mandate (if there was one) and what ticketing agents might have been told. I'm afraid the mystery was lost in the scandal kicked up by USBP agents' using reins as whips -- another travesty that deserves further scrutiny. Sadly, however, I feel that door was shut tight when CBP's internal review failed to interview any of the impacted individuals and therefore failed to find any agency wrongdoing. Sigh.
I am deeply appreciative of your arduous documentation of a situation that haunts me still. I vigile alone in downtown Bisbee because I didn’t know what else to do. I am horrified by the heinous racism endured by Haitian & African asylum seekers in Mexico & the US! The conditions for these 2 groups in the Matamoros refugee camps are dangerous & deadly. If poverty weren’t strangling me, I would find a translator & go to that camp separated from all other asylum seekers! We are in the midst of globalized human rights/refugee crisis of unimaginable death & despair. I am really sickened by the US & it’s well funded hypocrisy. Thank you so much for this article!
So grateful for your words, your work, and your perspective, Swaneagle. Your disgust matches my own and is exactly why I decided to write Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands. I hope it will empower your vigil, just as I hope it succeeds in my aim to inform folks north of the 100-mile CBP check-pointed jurisdiction about border cruelty, in general, and racialized border cruelty in particular. I truly believe that if "they" knew, they'd be outraged too! Stay strong!
Thanks for this harrowing account Sarah and your valuable eyewitness testimony for an event that is desperately in need of further scrutiny. Would love to know who gave the message to the bus companies that the only tickets available were to Ciudad Acuña. I think Alfredo Corchado with the Dallas Morning News probably got closest with his coverage on what was happening from the Mexican governmental side of this.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Melissa! I really appreciate it -- and the tip to Alfredo's reporting. I agree this incident deserves further scrutiny -- particularly with regard to who was behind the bus company mandate (if there was one) and what ticketing agents might have been told. I'm afraid the mystery was lost in the scandal kicked up by USBP agents' using reins as whips -- another travesty that deserves further scrutiny. Sadly, however, I feel that door was shut tight when CBP's internal review failed to interview any of the impacted individuals and therefore failed to find any agency wrongdoing. Sigh.
I am deeply appreciative of your arduous documentation of a situation that haunts me still. I vigile alone in downtown Bisbee because I didn’t know what else to do. I am horrified by the heinous racism endured by Haitian & African asylum seekers in Mexico & the US! The conditions for these 2 groups in the Matamoros refugee camps are dangerous & deadly. If poverty weren’t strangling me, I would find a translator & go to that camp separated from all other asylum seekers! We are in the midst of globalized human rights/refugee crisis of unimaginable death & despair. I am really sickened by the US & it’s well funded hypocrisy. Thank you so much for this article!
So grateful for your words, your work, and your perspective, Swaneagle. Your disgust matches my own and is exactly why I decided to write Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands. I hope it will empower your vigil, just as I hope it succeeds in my aim to inform folks north of the 100-mile CBP check-pointed jurisdiction about border cruelty, in general, and racialized border cruelty in particular. I truly believe that if "they" knew, they'd be outraged too! Stay strong!
Thank you, Sarah, for this amazing work and your commitment to justice.
Thank you, Heidi, for reading and commenting! My gratitude knows no bounds!