Since the October 1, 1994 launch of Operation Gatekeeper, the Sonoran desert, one of the hottest places on Earth in the summertime, has destroyed the lives and stolen the dreams of an estimated 10,000 souls. Forcing upon them a death most cruel, the US government remains steadfast in its nearly 30-year bet that the agony of some will deter others from coming. It hasn't. So what started as a dream “to reveal to the world the US government’s responsibility for turning the Sonoran Desert into a graveyard” has resulted in Alvaro transforming the desert into a cemetery, an art installation, and a memorial to the needless suffering of the unknown.

To date, he has marked the red dots of 1,200 (and counting) of the 10,000 (and counting) fallen. It's a work of monumental art, exposing government-sanctioned inhumanity. Art without sentimentality. Art without end. Art intended to lift up the lost while informing the living. It's a symbolic expression of who we should not be as a country. 

Alvaro's Desert Monument to the Dead screams quietly at us to rethink the policy of “Prevention Through Deterrence,” our First, Second, and possibly Third Solution.

Find Alvaro's tale alongside other stories of how art keeps good alive in the worst of times in the now available collection from She Writes Press: Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis, in which women writers reveal that in tumultuous times such as these, we need poets more than we need politicians.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the war in Ukraine to the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond: Who gets welcome? Who gets to move?

We conclude with ideas about how to create a more inclusive world, one better able to confront such challenges as climate change, global pandemics, capitalist greed run amok, and the hardened, racialized borders throughout the world that have given rise to violent exclusionary tactics.

Our conversation first aired as a webinar hosted by Witness at the Border on March 31, 2022. So, some of the numbers cited have since changed. But we felt the discussion was too important not to republish in audio format. We hope you agree. 

Meet the speakers:

Activist scholar Dr. Nandita Sharma is a professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research addresses human migration, migrant labor, nation-state power, ideologies of racism, sexism, and nationalism, processes of identification and self-understanding, and social movements for justice. Nandita is the author of Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of ‘Migrant Workers’ in Canada and Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants.

Dr. Reece Jones is a professor of geography and environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and the author of White Borders, Violent Borders, and Border Walls. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Geopolitics and co-editor of the Routledge Geopolitics Book Series. His next book, Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States, is available for preorder from Counterpoint Press.

Camilo Perez Bustillo is the current chair professor of human rights at National Taiwan University's College of Law. He is also a fellow at both the Institute for the Geography of Peace, Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso, Texas, and Norway's University of Bergen Global Research Program on Inequality; co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild Task Force on the Americas; co-founder of the International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement; and lead author of Human Rights, Hegemony and Utopia in Latin America.

Sarah Towle is a London-based author, educator, and human rights defender, sharing her journey from outrage to activism one Witness Radio episode and story at a time in her forthcoming book, The First Solution: Tales of Humanity from the Borderlands.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Very hard. Especially when immigration is a voting issue for only one party. 

The use of Title 42 is the perfect example. An obscure public health order, it was brought out of obscurity two years ago this month by Trump & Co, ostensibly to stop Covid-19 at the US Southern border but really to stop people, most egregiously those seeking protection. 

Now the reason for the expulsion of more than 1 million people fleeing climate devastation, endemic violence, political repression, and crippling poverty, Title 42 was Trump’s crime against humanity.

Until it became Biden’s. 

Despite the two-year outcry from progressives and immigration advocates, the Biden administration has yet to rescind the policy that is responsible for expelling more Haitian asylum seekers in one year than during the previous three presidencies combined. But Title 42 was never meant to be permanent, and with the virus now under control, it’s time for the policy that has cost so much money and so much suffering to go!

In this one-year anniversary podcast, Witness Radio Host Sarah Towle recasts Ep 1, Title 42: The Invisible Wall, with the 2021 winner of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, Guerline Jozef, and RFKHR President, Kerry Kennedy, to expose the anti-Blackness baked into US immigration system, soup to nuts, but epitomized by an oddball public health provision that was misappropriated by one administration to end the right of asylum in the US; and tolerated by the next administration for no other reason than political optics.

Join us as we unpack the evils lurking behind Title 42 -- for the second time --to explain why everyone should demand President Biden and DHS Secretary Mayorkas to rescind it...Now!

For more information:

The Invisible Wall: Title 42 and its Impact on Haitian Migrants

Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, Quixote Center

Black Immigrants Matter

Jack Herrera with Guerline Jozef, The Nation

The Time for a Paradigmatic Shift in How Americans View Immigrants and Immigration is Now

Sarah Towle, Southern Border Communities Coalition

Seven Myths We Must Unlearn To Reclaim Our Humanity

Sarah Towle, Medium, The Daily Kos

THIS IS WHY WE WITNESS!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

But throughout it all, there is one thing that hasn’t skipped a beat: the US Deportation Machine. 

This episode's featured guest is Thomas Cartwright, a member of the leadership team of Witness at the Border. Tom dedicated his time during the past 24 months of the global pandemic to collecting, compiling, and communicating data that the US government would prefer you did not know.

When Trump strong-armed the US Centers for Disease Control into hacking Title 42 of the US public health code to close the southern border to migration, thereby ending Witness's long-term vigil to end Trump & Co's Migrant "Protection" Protocols, aka Remain in Mexico policy, Tom's witness did not stop.

Rather, he took it digital. Sadly and inexplicably, he discovered that little changed under Biden.

On this US Black History Month 2022 installment of Witness Radio, Tom gives us a Tale of Two Presidencies in numbers that reveal the scope of the expulsions of Haitians under Biden as well as the scale of the deportation flights to Africa under his predecessor, proving that, indeed, immigration is a Black issue.

Additional reading:

ICE Air Monthly Flight-Report, Thomas Cartwright, Witness at the Border

How Can You Throw Us Back? Asylum Seekers Abused in the US and Deported to Harm in Cameroon, Human Rights Watch

Amazon Co-owns Deportation Airline Implicated in Alleged Torture of Immigrants, Sam Biddle, The Intercept

Biden has deported nearly as many Haitians in his first year as the last three presidents – combined, Tom Ricker, Quixote Center

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

They start with the question, What would Dr. King have said about one of the greatest human rights crimes in recent US history: family separation?

A civil rights lawyer and human rights scholar, Camilo was at ground-zero in El Paso, Texas when the practice of separating migrating families was piloted by the Trump administration before being rolled out across the borderlands, as policy, in April 2018. The burden of responsibility for the crimes then committed now falls to the Biden administration, which faces a Sophie’s choice:

• Acknowledge the irreparable damage done to these families by the US government and negotiate a legal remedy -- at the risk of sparking the further ire of Trump World and the GOP prior to US mid-term elections?
• Or shield the US government from a settlement and, in effect, defend government-sanctioned torture in the form of separating families.

On January 5th, the Biden Administration staked its claim to a position. Tap that play button to find out where it landed.

Click Here for Episode Transcript

But before you go, we have a huge favor to ask... Help us to get more listeners: Please rate and review Witness Radio wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you in advance!

Sarah & Camilo

Additional Reading:

Biden Administration Makes Cruel Decision to Fight California Families Separated at the Border in Court

Justice Department Halts Settlement Talks With Migrant Families

Separation of Families on the U.S.-Mexican Border as a Form of Torture

“You Will Never See Your Child Again”: The Persistent Psychological Effects of Family Separation

SEALING THE BORDER: The Criminalization of Asylum Seekers in the Trump Era, Hope Border Institute Annual Report, December 2018

Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Amicus Brief by Stanford University psychologists and others documenting all the evidence that proves family separation is experienced by its victims as torture

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A cruel, anti-asylum Trump-era policy is back under a president who promised a more humane border: the Migrant "Protection" Protocols, which never protected anyone at all.

Biden maintains that his Remain in Mexico program, or MPP 2.0, will be a gentler, “lite” version of his predecessor’s policy.

But can Inhumane be less Inhumane?

That is the question Sarah Towle, Host and Director of Witness Radio, asks

• Charlene D’Cruz, Lawyers for Good Government
• Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, American Immigration Council, and 
• Yael Schacher, Refugees International

in this Grand Finale episode of Witness Radio's inaugural season. Together, they unpack the Remain in Mexico program, its impact on human lives, and the convoluted litigation President Biden claims is forcing him to stand it back up again, even as his administration expands it. 

We hope it sends you into 2022 with a bit of hope and just enough outrage.

Additional Information:

On Externalization: Why the Belarus Migrant Crisis is Different, Vox

Remain in Mexico 2.0: Civil Society Left Holding the Bag, by Joy Olson

Biden Reinstates the ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program: What You Need to Know, by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

The Secretive Prisons That Keep Migrants Out of Europe, by Ian Urbina

Migrant "Protection" Protocols Survivor Stories: Gabriel, Perla, Natasha, Enrique, Series by Sarah Towle

Building Better, Not Backward: Learning from the Past to Design Sound Border Asylum Policy, by Yael Schacher

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Camilo Perez-Bustillo, the Executive Producer of Witness Radio, was there.

In remembrance of both International Human Rights Day (Dec 10) and International Migrants Day (Dec 18), he sat down with Sarah Towle, Witness Radio Host & Director, to discuss the tragic migrant deaths in Chiapas, Mexico, the unresolved humanitarian crisis on the Poland-Belarus border, the secret detention centers in Northern Africa funded by the EU, and the resumption of the US Remain in Mexico program.

What connects these obvious human rights abominations?

Securitization, which frames migrants as threats to national security, and externalization, which invites nations of the global north, under the guise of "global migration governance," to extend their borders beyond the boundaries asylum-seekers are hoping to cross.

Sarah and Camilo wonder: Though The Global Compact on Migration promotes "safe, orderly, and regular migration," has it resulted in international crimes against humanity and potential "migrant genocide" instead?

correction, Dec 17, 2021: the number of dead in the Chiapas tragedy has now risen to 57

Additional reading:

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration

The Impact of Externalization of Migration Controls on the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants, By Bill Frelick, Ian M. Kysel, and Jennifer Podkul

Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala deploy troops to lower migration, By Alexandra Jaffe

"Enemy Mentality": Mexico Cracks Down on Migrants and Asylum-Seekers at its Southern Border, By Sandra Cuffe

The Secretive Prisons That Keep Migrants Out of Europe, By Ian Urbina

10 DECEMBER 2021, Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is one man, however, for whom those young souls are always top of mind: Larry Cox. He lost his child to US Customs and Border Protection officials while attempting to bring her to safety in 2011. 

That odyssey, recounted and read by Witness Radio Host & Director, Sarah Towle, reveals that the US was separating families long before 2018 -- and still is.

It also sheds light on the less-discussed side of family separation: the indelible mark of trauma left on the parents of children and youth kidnapped by Uncle Sam. 

It's a cautionary tale. One that needs to be told. We thank Larry for entrusting us to tell it.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The latest turn in the vicious cycle came this summer when a post-pandemic tax hike aimed at the middle class and poor drove Colombians of all stripes into the streets. A peaceful demonstration, resembling a street party, erupted nationwide. The southwest city of Cali, population 2.2 million -- 60% of whom are Afro-Colombian, joined by an untold number of indigenous people driven off their land in the past decade -- became its epicenter.

Here, where racism and brutal police repression have long taken a toll, what started as a protest against the tax reform turned into a vocal critique of President Ivan Duque’s mismanagement and corruption. He responded to peaceful protests, largely by youth, with military-style aggression.

The United Nations, European Union, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International all decried the excessive use of force by police on unarmed civilians demanding their basic human right to survival.

In this episode of Witness Radio, Executive Producer Camilo Perez-Bustillo talks with Manuel Rozental, Colombian physician, former Deputy Minister of Health, founder of Pueblos en Camino, and activist with more than 40 years of involvement in grassroots political organizing with youth, Indigenous communities, and urban and rural social movements, to discuss the protests and their link to climate change, environmental justice, and the defense of mother earth.

For additional information:

Colombia protests enter week three as violence escalates

The Pandemic Strikes: Responding to Colombia’s Mass Protests

Colombia used 'excessive force' against protesters, says human rights report

Colombia government sends $3.9 bln tax reform to congress amid renewed protests

Amnesty condemns Colombia police brutality after scores of protesters killed

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The latest driver of forced migration, climate change has had devastating effects throughout the Global South. Years of drought followed by back-to-back category-4 hurricanes, for example, have made the Central American region increasingly uninhabitable. 

Amali stresses the urgency: Not only is climate change an existential force that knows no borders and impacts most those who've contributed least to its cause, but the "traditional" protections afforded to refugees (aka asylum seekers) by the 1951 framework fall outside its current bounds. Though at the time considered a great advance for social justice and international human rights law, the 1951 Refugee Convention is now ill-equipped to deal with the greatest crisis of our time, Amali says.

Alongside crippling poverty, corruption, and conflict, climate change is implicated in the forced displacement of an unprecedented 273 million of the world's most vulnerable people. The tasks facing the international community are clear, particularly governments in the Global North: Stop denying climate change, and start rethinking how the 1951 Refugee Convention can be updated to respond to a world on fire.

Central American Climate Migration is a Human Security Crisis By Amali Tower

CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT IN THE NEWS

FRONTLINES: ACTIONS ON CLIMATE DISPLACEMENT

WITNESS RADIO: EPISODE 3 -- Aviva Chomsky on the REAL Root Causes of Migration

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re hearing a lot about poverty, corruption, violence. But we’re not hearing much about what’s behind that poverty, corruption, violence, or the climate-related disasters and failing economies that force people to pull up stakes and flee. Why?

We’re also hearing a lot about bringing “Security and Prosperity” to the Central American region. But does this herald a new policy direction, or is it simply a euphemism for more of the same?

In this sit-down with Professor Aviva Chomsky, we explore these questions and more.

Her brilliant new book, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration, takes us all the way back to the founding of the United States to explain the complex relationship the US has long had with its southern neighbors and how we got to the place we find ourselves in today.

Professor Chomsky’s book is a Must-Read for anyone wishing to understand why migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers continue to arrive at US borders despite decades of US immigration strategies that prioritize deterrence over the human right to dignity.

~~~

Special thanks to Witness Radio Executive Producer, Professor Camilo Perez-Bustillo, our Patreon Patrons, without whom we could not create this show, and to our listeners, for joining us to consider the real root causes of migration to the United States — the ones lurking behind poverty, corruption, and violence, and which contribute to today’s climate-related disasters and failing economies south of the US border.

I’m Sarah Towle, Host and Director of Witness Radio, where we aim to discuss all the issues plaguing the US immigration system today. This is Why we Witness.

Subscribe, Rate, and Review Witness Radio on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And, please, consider becoming a Patron of Witness Radio, if you haven’t already. It’s easy to do. Just go to patreon.com/witnessradio and sign up.

We’ll see you here, there, and everywhere.

Witness Radio is produced by Livia Brock.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was April 30th, 2021, Mexico’s Children’s Day — El Dia de las Niñas y Niños, which happened to coincide with the 100th day of the Biden administration. Witness at the Border, together with over 80 national and international sponsors, and in collaboration with local partners — the Border Network for Human Rights, the Coalition to End Child Detention, and the Hope Border Institute — convened at the Paso del Norte Bridge in the borderlands of El Paso, Texas. From there, we walked six miles to the gates of Fort Bliss, the largest military base in the United States, which as of this recording was holding nearly 5000 migrant youth.

Participants rallied to hear speakers shed light on the injustices committed by detaining children, particularly children in trauma , and particularly during a deadly pandemic — an issue that we believe should be on the minds of all Americans.

This episode of Witness Radio is an effort to recreate that important day and to spread the word, from the borderlands and beyond, about what is being done to children in all our names.

Join us as we bear witness in the defense of human dignity and the human rights of migrant children and their families.

Speakers in order of appearance:

Rabbi Josh Whinston Temple Beth Emeth

Joshua Rubin Witness at the Border

Veronica Frescas Border Network for Human Rights

Marisa Limon Garza Hope Border Institute

Susana Herrera-Villa Border Network for Human Rights

Dr. Amy Cohen Every. Last. One

Karina Breceda San Juan Apostol Shelter

Adriana Cadena Border Network for Human Rights

And me, Sarah Towle, Host & Director of Witness Radio

Related Resources:

New York Times For Migrant Children in Federal Care, a ‘Sense of Desperation’

CBS News Migrant children describe poor conditions at makeshift U.S. shelters in interviews with attorneys

BBC News Children tell of neglect, filth and fear in US asylum camps

El Paso Matters Critics raise concerns over expanding Fort Bliss megasite for migrant children

Witness Radio Episode 1: Title 42 -- The Invisible Border Wall

Like this Podcast? Support us on Patreon!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've never heard of Title 42, I'm not surprised. It's a super obscure part of the United States public health code. In this inaugural episode of Witness Radio, we unpack the evils lurking behind Title and explain why everyone should demand President Biden and DHS Secretary Mayorkas to rescind it...Now!

On the night I joined Guerline Jozef, Thomas Cartwright, Camilo Perez-Bustillo, and Joshua Rubin to discuss the tragic unintended consequences of Title 42, the Biden administration had already realized 23 deportation flights to Haiti, dropping thousands of the world's most vulnerable asylum seekers into a country literally on fire. Today, as we near Biden's first 100 days, deportation flights to Haiti now number 29 -- the lion's share taking place during Black History Month.

Meanwhile, the numbers of so-called unaccompanied youth crossing the border have skyrocketed. Why? Title 42.

Trump's real wall -- an invisible wall with Stephen Miller's fingerprints all over it -- Title 42 traps families in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and safety from persecution in some of the most dangerous places on earth. Unable to penetrate this invisible wall, too many parents make the heart-wrenching decision to send their kids across to "safety" alone. In Rubin's words, "It is a disaster. It is a tragedy. It is immoral. It is horrible."

Still not sure what Title 42 is? Listen to this podcast.

Then circle back here for more information:

The Invisible Wall: Title 42 and its Impact on Haitian Migrants

Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, Quixote Center

Black Immigrants Matter

Jack Herrera with Guerline Jozef, The Nation

The Time for a Paradigmatic Shift in How Americans View Immigrants and Immigration is Now

Sarah Towle, Southern Border Communities Coalition

Seven Myths We Must Unlearn To Reclaim Our Humanity

Sarah Towle, Medium, The Daily Kos

THIS IS WHY WE WITNESS!

Like this podcast? Support us on PATREON!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In order of appearance:

• Joshua Rubin
• Camilo Perez-Bustillo
• Julie Swift
• Karla Barber
• Lee Goodman
• Thomas Cartwright
• Margaret Seiler

and Witness Radio host & creator, Sarah Towle.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.