MEDIA ADVISORY FROM JEWISH ACTIVISTS FOR IMMIGRATION JUSTICE OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
10 Members of JAIJ witnessed, organized, and provided humanitarian relief in Matamoros, Mexico and Brownsville, Texas, February 8-18; public report-backs scheduled. Authors of individual quotes are available for interviews. Permission granted to quote in whole or in part with this attribution: Member of Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice February 2020 delegation to the US/Mexico border.
CONTACT: Shel Horowitz, 413-586-2388, shel@principledprofit.com or Carolyn Toll Oppenheim, 413-584-0722, ctollopp@gmail.com
Members of the Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice Delegation to the Border Share Their Biggest Takeaways from our Nine Days on the Border
“Really seeing the human beings behind the numbers and the news, like the eager 8-year-old who taught me every song he remembered; the family fled because gangs threatened to kill this wonderful boy. Please don’t send this little boy and his family back to violence and death!”—Alice Levine
“While watching the plane being filled with shackled men, women and children, returning them to face violence and death, I see a sign held by a witness:
‘What if this was Your Family?’
We must not look away or remain silent.”—Betty Lynne Wolfson
“I was very moved by the resilience I witnessed among the asylum seekers in Matamoros in the face of an evil and inhumane policy that keeps them in danger and denies them their legal right to seek asylum.”—Karen Levine
“The poetry/creative writing/visioning workshop on Somos Como Las Nubes, an illustrated book of poems by Salvadoran immigrant Jorge Argueta. Listening to people write or draw the stories in their hearts was profound, even as they cried and we all cried.”—D. Dina Friedman
Today’s ‘legal system’ for asylum seekers makes a mockery of international law: denying them the right to put a toe on our soil and get a court date to make their legitimate claim of credible fear of danger from their country. Now Homeland Security defines that effort as a crime.”—Carolyn Oppenheim
“Witnessing actually has the power to change lives. We saw this when we gave hope to several busloads of shackled deportees about to be loaded on an airplane and shipped off to a country where their lives are at risk.”—Shel Horowitz
“The Asylum Seekers in Matamoros rescued me! Pulling my empty food wagon, I decided to bring it down steep concrete steps— and immediately fell headlong. Five men rushed to my tumbling self and carried me and the wagon to safety, I gratefully, humbly and thankfully served dinner.”—Joan Epstein
“Such beautiful children, such beautiful people, pushed back across the border in defiance of their legal right to seek asylum in our rich and resourced country which is criminally sending most back to violence and poverty. Such an emotional combination of outrage and horror—and heartwarming human connection.”—Holly Bishop
“A young couple and infant shivered as I served them dinner. They’d just arrived, full of hope. Another said: ‘I have to guard my family at night to keep them safe.’ I cringed at the months-long wait, the cold, the cartel members who kidnap, extort, rob, rape and sometimes kill.”—Annique Boomsma
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VIEW FROM THE BORDER : PUBLIC TALKBACKS
Members of the Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice will be reporting on their recent experience witnessing, protesting and providing humanitarian aid to asylum- seekers who are being forced to wait for months in crowded and unsafe refugee camps on the Brownsville/Matamoros Border under the controversial “MPP” (aka Wait in Mexico) Program.
Saturday, February 22, 12:30-2 pm, Congregation B’nai Israel, Northampton
Monday, February 24, 7:00 pm, Pathways Co-Housing, Florence
(Sponsored by Indivisible Northampton and Beit Ahavah)
Wednesday March 4, 6:30-8:30 pm, Forbes Library, Northampton
Friday, March 6, 6-8 pm, Temple Israel, Greenfield.
(Vegetarian potluck co-sponsored by Traprock Peace Center)
Tuesday, March 10, 7 pm, Jewish Community of Amherst,
Monday, March 16, 5:30 pm, First Congregational Church Amherst
(Monthly Sanctuary Potluck with Lucio Perez)
Sunday March 22, 9:30-10:45 am, Northampton Friends Meeting
Presented by Jewish Activists of Immigration Justice
FACEBOOK PAGE: Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western Massachusetts