Our government, in our names, have made these children into "things." They have been dehumanized to be used as a policy deterrent. There is NO care about them as the precious, vulnerable humans they are. They are specifically being abused to show potential asylum seekers what monsters we are so that they won't come. That's what is going on. That is their stated policy direction AND we (our government, in our names) did not create a system to track these children and the parents from whom we stole them so that we could EVER reunite them.
As Hannah Arendt said, this is the banality of evil and if each individual one of us DOES NOT STAND UP AND PROCLAIM "NOT IN MY NAME!" over and over and over again and do what we can to stop it...then we are complicit.
A couple of different things.
VIGIL!!!
On July 12th there will be vigils around the country. The most important moment will be at 9 in which people will be lighting candles in MOURNING for this travesty. This will be the moment in which the news crews from everywhere will take their most compelling pictures and we need to be showing up in force. Here is where you find the vigil sites. If you go onto that site and you DO NOT find one for your locale, make one..all the information is at the bottom of that list. Call 5 friends and get them to agree to come and help you put it together. Sign up for a site (they tell you how) and it will go on their webpage. They will help you figure out how to do it. Then you can make a public FB event. Either that, or call one of the migrant friendly organizations, suggest that you work with them to create an event. They have provided all the information you need to found an event. Just do something.
Next up:
CALL, WRITE, SPEAK - contact your elected representatives and make sure that they know NOT IN YOUR NAME and NEVER AGAIN.
Next: Donate if you can. Some good organizations:
- RAICES
- The American Bar Association's Southern Border Pro Bono Asylum Seeker's Project
- Border Angels
- ACLU
- Southern Poverty Law Center
NEXT: The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee has released an important report in which they FOLLOW THE MONEY and figured out which three organizations are making a killing off this travesty and (no surprise) their deep connections with high ranking GOP operatives/officials...especially in this administration. People are PROFITING off these concentrations camps for children. In particular:
Comprehensive Health Services
Take a look at their menu...they do all sorts of things that look very benign. But if your company is using them, demand to leadership that they change providers. If you have an option on a personal level, choose a different provider. Comprehensive Health Services is owned by Caliburn International, which is an LLC. Here is their corporate address: 10701 Parkridge Blvd Suite 200 Reston, VA 20191 United States and the Chief Operating Office is General C.D. Moore who, among other things, is a trustee at Wright State University. So, I am going to spend a bit of time writing to WSU demanding that he get kicked off their Board of Trustees...because he is profiteering from this situation. Here is the Board of Trustees for Caliburn.
Next up on the list of profiteering groups!
The GEO Group
This is a notorious private prison group. It seems that what is happening is these children who are kept in concentration camps, at least some of them are being transferred upon their 18th birthday into the private prison system.
The address is here:
One Park Place
Suite 700
621 Northwest 53rd StreetBoca Raton, Florida 33487George C. Zoley is the founder and the head of the organization. He clears almost 7 million a year in compensation. Here is the list of their board members, etc. It doesn't look like the senior leadership of GEO serves on boards of other organizations...they are probably too toxic.
The person there who may be of interest is Richard H. Glanton. Glanton is on the board and chairs several committees. He is the CEO of the Philadelphia Television Network. 1515 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102.
It might be useful to start raising questions there about why their CEO is serving on the board of a group that is profiteering from illegally seized and imprisoned asylum seeking children who are transferred into these private prisons when they turn 18. .
Next up: General Dynamics.
Making a lot of contracting dollars off "training and technical assistance" to the Homestead facility.
Address: 2941 Fairview Park Drive Suite 100 Falls Church, VA 22042 United StatesCEO = Phebe N. Novakovic - who is on the board of the National Military Family Association
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