I am so happy to tell you that I will be heading to Tornillo Texas on December 23
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to participate in a peaceful protest to bring attention to the 3,000 children being held in this particular desert detention center in Tornillo. Overall, there are 14,000 children incarcerated across our country in terrible warehouse and caged locations. This heart- wrenching and immoral reality has haunted me since last June when we found out about these poor children who have been torn from their parent’s arms and warehoused like cattle. This is such a violent punishment to inflict on the emotional soul of a child. It takes my breath away for pain.
I am relieved just to be able to go to this facility even though, as an ordained Rabbi, I should be able to enter the center and visit the children. However, they are allowing no one to enter, including spiritual leaders who want nothing more than to comfort the children and calm their fears. So I will stand outside the tent city with hundreds of others, and we will pray and sing and create art in their honor. Sometimes it's enough just to witness. Oh, that others would have done the same for us when we were imprisoned and removed from the sight of humanity! Inhumane things happen when no one is watching. I am going to witness.
This is the letter that this coalition has written to Congress, I have added my name.
To: Members of Congress
We, the Shut Tornillo Down Coalition, call upon Congress to force the immediate shutdown of the immigrant detention center in Tornillo, Texas, where thousands of children are imprisoned.
Detaining children under circumstances such as those at Tornillo is a form of abuse which predictably generates irreparable harm that compounds their already existent trauma. This amounts to psychological and emotional torture. Restorative justice for the children who have been subjected to detention at Tornillo and similar places is a must.
Therefore, we demand that Congress:
1. Shut Tornillo down. Release every child in Tornillo to a family member, sponsor, or licensed child welfare placement as expeditiously as possible, as required by the federal law.
2. Stop using children as bait to identify undocumented residents of our country. Terminate the policy that requires ICE to fingerprint all sponsors and their household members and allows ICE to use that information for enforcement purposes.
3.
Do not use Tornillo or the Tornillo model for detainees of any age.
It is excessive and cruel, cost-prohibitive, and contrary to the values of our immigration law.
4. Assure that all child detainees receive educational, health, and psychological services in keeping with all rights accorded under the Flores Settlement.
We ask that these actions be taken as swiftly as possible, for the well-being of the children in custody and to prevent expansion of these harmful practices and policies.
