Several demonstrations took place on Friday, July 12, in the United States, against the fate of the migrants placed, and to demand the closure of migrant detention camps, qualified by the protesters as true "concentration camps". The Donald Trump administration is preparing to launch a massive operation against illegal aliens and has already announced a wave of evictions of undocumented migrants.
"Release them, now" ... The call by thousands of people was repeated Friday in San Ysidro (California), on the Mexican border, but also elsewhere in the United States.
Opening the march towards the administrative building of the border post in front of the Mexican city of Tijuana, children carried blankets of aluminum foil on the shoulders, like those received by undocumented people. Others advanced to the rhythm of traditional dances, in an odor of incense.
Overcrowding
"Close the concentration camps", "The place of the children is not in cells", "We are not Nazis", proclaimed in particular the placards of the demonstrators.
Similar parades took place in other US cities. In Los Angeles, Washington DC, but also in Homestead, Florida, ten days after an audit of these detention centers denounced the conditions of overpopulation that prevail there.
"The definition of concentration camps is a place where people are held who are not criminals, for racial or ethnic reasons." explained 56-year-old Mimi Rosicky, wearing a white shirt with black lines and a Star of David on her chest. "It's happening now, we have concentration camps in the United States," she added, waving a sign saying, "when Jews never say that again, they know what they're talking about."
It's "a situation we've never seen," says Marco Aguilar, comparing Donald Trump's government to Nazism or Joseph Stalin's totalitarianism. "There can be no question of it in the land of freedom and equality."
Treaties "inhumanly"
Present in the procession, Alisa Davies, 48, has disguised herself as a Statue of Liberty, which remains for many the symbol of immigration in the United States, opening her arms "to immigrants". "There is no reason, she says, to treat refugees and immigrants inhumanly."
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, said last week that the best solution to detention centers was ultimately to "not come" to the United States. The latter, who hopes to be re-elected next year, has multiplied during his mandate measures to fight against illegal immigration.
On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Texas to denounce the migration crisis that has come mainly from Central American countries and which he says is "overwhelming [the] American system".
The protesters finally passed a sign in the shape of a road sign announcing "Mexico, no return to the United States". As a challenge, they stopped and continued their way, before dispersing after observing a minute of silence.
With AFP