For the second consecutive week, a small group of protestors stood outside the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection sector headquarters in Chula Vista, silently protesting the “concentration camp” like conditions that young children are placed in when separated from their families crossing the U.S. border seeking asylum.
Protestors on Thursday, July 5, held signs that read “Chula Vista” “San Ysdiro” “Camp Pendleton –Pending” and other locations in the county that the sector oversees.
“We’re out here today to educate the community about the fact that there’s an entire concentration camp industry in San Diego County that is profiting off of ripping children away from their families and locking them in cages,” said Eva Posner, the group’s spokeswoman and a community activist. “There are at least 13 facilities in San Diego County that are helping this industry along and profiting off of this, everything from administrative buildings and detention centers to court houses.”
Along with their signs, protestors also held baby dolls wrapped in tinfoil serving as a blanket surrounded by a metal cage, symbolizing the cages that young children are placed in once separated from their family. An audio recording from ProPublica of crying children inside a detention center played throughout the three-hour long protest.
On this day there were no counter protests, but protestors say there was one person who counter demonstarted last time.
The federal policy separating families was ordered earlier this year by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had announced a zero-tolerance policy of referring all border crossings for federal criminal prosecution, which leads to children being separated as their parents are sent to jail. On July 5, the Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that there are less than 3,000 separated families in its care.
President Donald J. Trump on June 25 signed an executive order ending his administration’s separation of immigrant families’ policy.
Trump has always defended the policy by saying that his administration was just enforcing the immigration laws that were set out by his predecessor.
Posner said the Trump administration is spreading narrative that it is ok to separate children from families so that they can justify what they are doing.
Posner said keeping children in cages is similar to the country’s actions from the past and that people need to speak out against this policy before history repeats itself.
“We know from history from what happened to the Native Americans, from what happened to the Japanese Americans, from what happened in World War II and other such atrocities throughout history,” she said. What will happen if we stay silent and we don’t stand up and say that this is wrong?”
Posner, a mother to a five-year old boy, said the policy separating children from their parents is one that she cannot comprehend.
“As a mom, I cannot imagine that reality,” she said. “I cannot imagine ever living through that. I cant imagine the pain that it would cause my kid. I can’t even leave him home alone, yet alone having him represent himself in court.”
Protestors will be out every Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. protesting in front of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters, 2411 Boswell Road.
5 or 6 and this is a story ??