We speak with organizers Linda Morris and Stan Shikuma about the No Bliss in Child Detention: End All Detention Now! Rally
(El Paso, Texas) ” More than a dozen immigrant rights organizations in Texas will hold a rally to end all child detention at Fort Bliss where 2,500 children are being held in inhumane conditions and without adequate supervision, services, and medical care.
The groups are demanding that President Biden immediately end all child detentions at Fort Bliss, and any remaining influx and emergency intake sites, and instead house the children in the supervision of child welfare advocates in facilities that are clean, safe, and uncrowded.
The groups participating in the rally are:
Border Network for Human Rights, Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee, Advocate Visitors with Immigrants in Detention, Coalition to End Child Detention-El Paso, Tsuru for Solidarity, Detention Watch Network, United We Dream, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, RITA-Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance, Mano Amiga and others will hold a cultural rally to call for the end of all child detention, and Bidens use of influx and intake sites to detain children. Tsuru for Solidarity is bringing Japanese American concentration camp survivors who were detained as children in U.S. detention sites including Fort Bliss, to participate in the rally.
This rally is a continuation of the local efforts to bring attention to the inhuman conditions under which children are being held at Ft. Bliss. Events will continue until all children are reunited and the detention facility at Fort Bliss is shut down.
Here are details of the rally:
When: Saturday, July 17, 2021
Time: 9 a.m. Press conference/10 a.m. rally
Where: Haddox Family Park, adjacent to Fort Bliss
Who:
Jennifer Apodaca, Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee (DMSC)
Michael Ishii, Tsuru for Solidarity
Veronica Frescas, Border Network for Human Rights
Guerline Jozef, Hatain Bridge Alliance
Cynthia Garcia, United We Dream
Liz Castillo, Detention Watch Network