As a summer intern with Texas Impact, I attended the Children’s Defense Fund/Texas Organizing Project protest at the new Carrizo Springs detention camp for children on Wednesday, July 3.
No one had been expecting high turnout, but when we pulled onto the narrow oil supply road that led to the camp, cars were already parked one after another. Walking up to the camp, we saw a tall chain-link fence covered with dark green and a solitary American flag jetting high over the fence. Through the fence, we saw only the faint outlines of long, low-flung buildings, but our time looking in was cut short by a policeman who insisted we could not take pictures and shouted over and over again that he was “not here to answer questions.” Eventually, he said that taking pictures was a fire hazard.
A protester exhibits the message on her shirt: “My name is Jesus. I do not have documents.”
For me, this recalled the mandate given to Christians in Matthew 25: Christ says “I was in prison and you visited me” and goes on to say that “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Christians must see the image of Christ in the people suffering in these camps. We must recognize our obligation to do whatever work is necessary so that everyone is treated with the dignity the image of God demands. These camps are so dehumanizing that one cannot even visit the detainees in their prison, and that means we need to shout over the walls twice as loud.
Neither the camp’s choking atmosphere nor the presence of law enforcement kept almost one hundred people from bearing witness to what was happening. The Children’s Defense Fund and the Texas Organizing Project organized the rally, and a fairly large group attended from the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation, including a speaker who emphasized the need for solidarity with indigenous peoples across colonially-imposed borders. Members of interfaith, Jewish, and Christian organizations came and spoke with speakers from Brooklyn and Chicago. Though speakers prescribed different solutions to the brutality we saw, all were united by the urgency of the situation.
A young man holding a sign and recording during the protest.
During this time, law enforcement had made several attendees move their cars from the front to the back of the line where they were parked, and then started towing cars from the back. By the end of the protest, the police had beaten, tased, and arrested three people. The next day, there was a rally and march from the Capitol in Austin and several people shared their support for those arrested at Carrizo Springs.
A wall of the detention center in Carrizo Springs.