2,000+ asylum seekers in a tent/tarp city

The city of Matamoros in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico is a city of more than a half million people, and the center of a metro area with over one and a quarter million. It is closely connected with the city of Brownsville, Texas directly across the border. So closely that one organizer wryly referred to Brownsville as a “gated community” suburb of Matamoros. This is where the Mexican and U.S. governments decided to park more than 2,000 asylum seekers in a makeshift migrant camp in a popular public greenway between the levee and the river.

“... while the organization would simply right itself by some compensating reaction in another part of its machinery – since everything interlocked – and remain unchanged.”
-- The Trial, by Franz Kafka

When Witness at the Border began, its focus was on the new Migrant Protection Protocol (“Remain in Mexico”) program and the camp it caused to spring up on the other side of the border. However, as organizers began to observe daily charter flights of shackled migrant deportees flying out of the Brownsville airport, and saw the size of the camp in Matamoros begin to stop growing, they shifted some of their attention to include witnessing at the airport.

“The Policeman said to me, ‘You want to know the way? Give up! Just give up!’”
   -- The Complete Stories ("Give It Up!"), by Franz Kafka

The current Administration has put in place an amazingly complex web of enforcement practices that have moved the U.S. from what often had been called “catch and release” to what we might now label “deter and deport.” My learning curve was steep and swift, even for someone with a law degree and a long business career in systems engineering.

“You don't need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary.” 
-- The Trial, by Franz Kafka

People who have been inside the “tent courts” describe a surreal world. A massive complex of gleaming white tents sits on a platform over a former parking lot. Fake grass turf covers the walkways between tents, while gray linoleum covers the floors of the vinyl-walled hallways, offices, and courtroom spaces inside. The judge appears on a large video display, sitting in a real courtroom many miles away. The prosecutor speaks off-screen, and often untranslated.

This is the first in a series of brief reports from my trip to the US-Mexico border for On Earth Peace.

This video shows the call put out by Joshua Rubin for people to come to Brownsville/Matamoros to witness the results of the Migrant Protection Protocols program started in 2019. Under MPP, asylum seekers who attempt to enter the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border may be required to stay in Mexico while immigration courts make a decision regarding their case.