Elizabeth C. McLaughlin
@ECMcLaughlin
8 days ago, 39 tweets, 20 min read Read on Twitter
IF YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT TRUMP IS DOING AT THE BORDER, you need to read and share this thread.
@jacobsoboroff @JuliaEAinsley please read this.
I have just gotten off the phone with a friend who is a legal volunteer in Border Patrol facilities.
Don't look away.
1/
My friend has done two tours now volunteering as a legal advocate inside CBP facilities.
She passed along information about what is happening there that indicates that the Trump Administration is violating every basic human right, and is moving toward military "solutions."
2/
So that folks understand the process: CBP has outposts on the border. Refugees seeking asylum travel hundreds of miles on foot, including with infants and small children, and turn themselves in at these outposts *on foot.*
Here's what happens next. Don't look away.
3/
CBP then transfers these human beings to a facility called "the Dog Pound." (Here, my friend started crying.)
The "Dog Pound" is comprised of cages, outside and on dirt, with no protection from the elements.
Don't look away.
4/
There are dozens of teen moms there.
There is no baby food.
While there, my friend saw a CBP agent take a baby from her teenage mother, strip the baby of its clothes, hand the baby back to the mother, and send them outside to the "Dog Pound" to sleep in the dirt.
5/
The "Dog Pound" has no running water, no covers, no tarp, no care, no safety from the elements. It is freezing at night, and deathly hot during the day.
Everyone is sick. My friend said she saw a baby on this trip that was so sick "I thought it would be dead by morning."
6/
Toddlers in the "Dog Pound" who had been eating solid food are given only infant formula. Moms are trying to start breast feeding again so their children don't starve.
These moms are dehydrated, sick, & have walked miles through desert with no water. CBP gives them nothing.
7/
It gets worse. Don't look away.
From the "Dog Pound," these human beings are moved to an area called "The Freezer."
The Freezer is kept at 55 degrees.
Some of the refugees who are moved there are still wet from their journey, and are put in The Freezer wet.
8/
CBP is keeping human beings in "The Freezer" for weeks at a time. WEEKS.
Including critically ill people, disabled people, sick children, teenage mothers with babies.
The floor of The Freezer is made of dirt or very rough concrete. There are no beds.
Keep reading.
9/
From "The Freezer," refugees are supposed to be moved to ICE facilities that are designed for residential care. They have beds, food, bathrooms.
However, (keep reading) THOSE FACILITIES ARE EMPTY.
ICE IS SHUTTING THEM DOWN.
Don't look away.
10/
What our government is doing instead is moving refugees to MILITARY INSTALLATIONS.
The announcement about Fort Sill, which was used as a Japanese internment camp, is only the start.
So why would our government be doing this?
11/
Here's why
These concentration camps (let's call them what they are) will be under the control of the Department of Homeland Security, but within the Department of Defense.
12/.
Unlike ICE facilities, which allow site inspectors inside, there will be no inspection of military-run camps.
The military will be able to deny access to anyone it chooses. No media. No oversight.
13/
Lawyers will not be allowed in. Human rights monitors will not be allowed in.
The camps will also be protected airspace, meaning that no drones can fly over them to take pictures of what's going on inside.
14/
The Trump administration will be able to conduct itself in whatever way it wants to without anyone knowing what's going on inside.
Think about what that means. Think about why they would want that.
This is happening RIGHT NOW.
15/
ICE facilities with beds and food are EMPTY, because the Trump administration is moving refugees into military-run concentration camps where they can do ANYTHING THEY CHOOSE without oversight, media scrutiny or advocate access.
16/
This administration is already committing atrocities at CBP facilities.
Border Patrol agents at the facility where my friend was working refer to these human beings as "bodies." Not people. "Bodies."
They are denying medicine, toilets, beds, food, shelter and clothes.
17/
My friend said that "Flores is on very tenuous ground."
We're days away from being met with "we're not going to let you in, no matter what."
18/
What is coming is crimes against humanity.
America is already perpetrating mass human rights violations, and this administration is setting it up so they can do far worse, in secret, under military supervision.
19/
Military forces are already been shifted to CBP. My friend saw *coast guard agents* (read that again) working for CBP at this facility.
If we do nothing, there will be blood on our hands.
20/
If Pelosi does nothing, there will be blood on her hands and the hands of every Democrat who refuses to act to end this administration's reign.
Fascism is here.
21/
If this enrages you, devastates you, frightens you, share this thread.
Then call your member of Congress and read it to them.
Then call @SpeakerPelosi and ask her why she sits silently by as our government does this.
22/
We're on a fast train to hell.
There's only one way to stop it.
Trump must be removed from power immediately, by any legal means, using every weapon in our arsenal.
23/
This is where we are. This is WHO we are.
Look reality in the face. Don't look away.
Fight like human life depends on it.
It does. It does. It does.
/end
PS. I have been asked to tag @AOC in this thread with an urgent plea that she read it.
What is happening at the border mandates immediate action and revolt in the Democratic party.
PPS. My friend has photos of the facility. This is real. It's America, right now.
Last tweet: please donate to @RAICESTEXAS. Please do it immediately and as much as you can.
Please donate to the @ACLU.
Please fight against this administration with everything you've got.
To those of you asking: tag your reps, your Senators, tag anyone you want.
Every American needs to see what this administration is doing in our name.
@HouseDemocrats need to ask themselves if they'll sit idly by while America perpetrates atrocities.
.@sarahkendzior @peterdaou @leeladaou @JasonOverstreet @ProudResister @AngryBlackLady @MsLaToshaBrown @dianelyssa @olgaNYC1211 @leahmcelrath @JoyAnnReid @ElieNYC @ZerlinaMaxwell @AnandWrites @umairh
Please read. Please share. Lives are in the balance.
.@AdamParkhomenko @coalitionbuildr @nicoleclee @cmclymer @FGossGraves @PamKeithFL @RepSwalwell @ewarren @KamalaHarris @JulianCastro
Please read. Please share. Lives are in the balance.
.@MuellerSheWrote @Alyssa_Milano @RoArquette @PattyArquette @MiraSorvino @MrJoshCharles @robreiner @PreetBharara @Mimirocah1 @JoyceWhiteVance @BarbMcQuade @tribelaw
Please read. Please share. Lives are in the balance.
Texas Monthly is covering similar conditions in this piece. My friend told me there are multiple "Dog Pounds" and "Freezers" at other CBP facilities than those my friend has been inside and this is common practice.
In El Paso, Border Patrol Is Detaining Migrants in ‘a Human Dog Pound’
Immigration officials have resumed the much-criticized practice of keeping people outdoors for weeks to relieve dangerous overcrowding.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/border-patrol-outdoor-detention-migrants-el-paso/
.@CapehartJ @CharlesMBlow @michelleinbklyn @davidfrum @DavidCornDC @Fahrenthold @NickKristof @FrankBruni @tomfriedman
Please read. Please share. Lives are in the balance.
.@mayawiley @matthewamiller @SRuhle @AliVelshi @yashar @andylassner @TiffanyDCross @kylegriffin1
Please read. Please share. Lives are in the balance.
.@waltshaub @gtconway3d @neal_katyal @NormEisen
Please read. Please share. Lives are in the balance.
"The girl said border authorities made her throw away a backpack with the baby’s clothing and hadn’t given her anything else, so the baby was in a dirty onesie bundled in a sweatshirt that another migrant mother gave her."
Premature Baby Found in Overcrowded Border Patrol Facility in Texas
The teenage girl with pigtail braids was hunched over in a wheelchair and holding a bunched sweatshirt when an immigrant advocate met her at a crowded Border Patrol facility in Texas. She opened the …
https://ktla.com/2019/06/13/premature-baby-found-in-overcrowded-border-patrol-facility-in-texas/
Add on from my contact at the border at the end of today:
“I think it’s important for people to understand the widespread failure to provide for basic necessities and care. Food, potable water, facilities, medical care, etc...”
“The premature baby and others who are critically ill are shining examples but there are others not far behind. It’s systemic. It’s intentional. And if someone was treating animals in this way the consequences would be swift and severe.”
Hello all. Thank you for continuing to share this thread.
I've compiled this flow chart to help everyday Americans understand the American camp system. This has been vetted by advocates at the border who have been inside these facilities.
Please share far and wide.
A lot of folks on this thread have doubted the existence of my "friend."
Please meet my friend @TobyGialluca-- a lawyer, a warrior and a heroine, and who is finally able to be public about the horrors of what she has seen inside US concentration camps.
Monitors warn of 'health crisis' at border detention facilities
A team of doctors, lawyers and advocates are warning of what they say are major health and hygiene problems at several US Customs and Border Protection facilities in Texas.
https://cnn.it/2IVuXC1
= new reply since forum marked as read
What I wrote back to him has ended our friendship, I think.
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