Activists Respond To America’s Concentration Camps

FEATURING ROSA CLEMENTE – Members of Congress visited a detention center in El Paso County, Texas, on Monday amid on-going attention to the deplorable conditions facing refugees and migrants in federal detention. Congress members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Joaquin Castro, Rashida Tlaib and others toured the inside, met with detainees, and later addressed reporters and others. Ocasio-Cortez said that women being held at the facility were told to drink toilet water, and Mr. Castro shared a video of the inside where women shared stories of their treatment with lawmakers.

On the same day as the tour ProPublica published a damning story of a secret Facebook group of current and former Customs and Border Patrol agents that shared vile, racist, and misogynist content. CBP says it is now investigating the story.

Activist groups have organized multiple actions this week. On Monday a Jewish group called Never Again launched an action in New Jersey. On Tuesday, Moveon.org organized mass actions and this Friday, the group One Billion Rising has convened an “Artistic Uprising” at the border.

For more information visit onebillionrising.org/artisticuprising and https://vday.org.

Rosa Clemente is a news correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali. She’s a community organizer, 2008 Green Party Vice Presidential candidate, and a doctoral candidate in the W.E.B. DuBois Department of AfroAmerican Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.