Beginning April 16, Moms4Good, Mother Forward, and the Blue Bunny Brigade joined hands with others to ramp up the pressure on state and federal officials to close the ICE detention center at Dilley, Texas, where immigrant families and children are being held. The object of the campaign is to close the detention center, known formally as the South Texas Family Residential Center, by Mother’s Day on May 10. The center is run by for-profit prison company CoreCivic.
On April 18, moms and supporters from across Texas will caravan to Dilley, meeting there at noon, to demand that the detention center release the children and families being held there. You can find more details and an activist toolkit here. The event will be livestreamed on the Blue Bunny Brigade Instagram account.
The toolkit includes this quote:
“We are just getting started. Just as the families inside of Dilley have not had a single decent night’s rest since they were abducted and forced into this concentration camp, we will not rest until they are freed. From now till Mother’s Day we demand these actions from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullins:
“Terminate the DHS tax-payer funded contract with Patrick Swindle, CEO of CoreCivic — the company that profits each time another child enters Dilley’s doors.
“#ShutDownDilley.
“#CloseTheCamps.
“Release Our Kids and Families by Mother’s Day!
“Follow @bluebunnybrigade for updates and actions YOU can take
“#ReuniteFamilies #AbolishICE”
Sarah Towle, author of Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands, wrote in a recent Substack post: “The Trump regime is on track to build an infrastructure capable of locking up more than 100,000 people on any given day — people who have largely committed no crime. Most shamefully, this includes children and youth: innocents who should be in school, not threatened with time in the SHU, the notorious “Special Housing Unit,” aka solitary confinement; innocents who should be allowed to play and run and draw and read, not be forced to remain quiet for 24 hours a day without books or toys or laughter or education. The so-called Pro-Life party, what’s more, is right now forcing teenage girls, some potentially impregnated by their US-citizens captors, to bring babies into the world without the benefit of prenatal care.
“No one should be locked up in places where they are denied medical attention, adequate nutrition, functional toilets, soap, and water worthy of drinking.
“No one should be provided only enough food to be kept from starvation; be made to withstand freezing temperatures day in and day out; and be forced to sleep under lights that blaze bright 24/7.
“No one should suffer retribution if they protest these inhumane conditions, file grievances against their captors, or attempt to speak to members of Congress or the press.
“But these are the daily realities in the US immigration Gulag. It is no place for anyone. It’s certainly no place for kids.”
Bob Lee is a professional journalist, writer and editor, and is co-editor of the People’s Tribune, serving as Managing Editor. He first started writing for and distributing the People’s Tribune in 1980, and joined the editorial board in 1987.
