February 17, 2020

Dear TLC Family, 

This week we are sharing a letter from volunteer extraordinaire, Margaret Seiler, which was written in Brownsville, Texas  on Valentine's Day. Margaret is currently working on the ground to help asylum seekers affected by the new MPP, commonly known as the Remain in Mexico policy. We share her story so that we all are aware of what is happening at the Border and how it continues to inform the work that we do here at Team TLC NYC. 

Coming up, our next Community Dinner is taking place on Wed. 2/19. RSVP here!

Warmly, Virginia

It's Valentine's Day. 

And I’m at the border in Brownsville, Texas. 

This morning I spent a couple hours waving hearts at prisoners at the local airport--asylum seekers in iron shackles waiting on busses to be loaded onto planes to be sent back to Central America. Guatemala, Honduras, countries from which they most likely fled for their lives. 

Yesterday I volunteered at a makeshift school in the refugee encampment in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville. The children were sweet and silly--they teased each other and laughed and yelled. 

One boy proudly showed me his math work. I read a story about butterflies (mariposas) to a small group. We handed out snacks, there was a pinata for a child’s birthday. These kids--just like our own kids here at home--deserve so much more. 

They are living in a dangerous encampment, living in donated tents (thank you, Team Brownsville) without running water. They’ve been here so long that things appear better--there are stations for gathering water now and lots of porta potties and even a new Unicef presence. But these families--about 2,200 people all together, 700 of them children, (and that’s just Matamoros, there are almost 60,000 people who have been sent back to Mexico to wait for asylum hearings)--are prey to the drug cartels who kidnap and rape and sometimes kill.

Because of our government’s policy of MPP, the new policies of PACR (Prompt Asylum Claim Review) and HARP (Humanitarian Asylum Review Process), asylum-seekers are moving faster through the system--often in just 10 days--ending in denied asylum claims and deporting them in shackles from the airport.

REMAIN IN MEXICO, RAICES VIDEO

I’m here with Witness at the Border for Love, Not Hate: Witness at the Border to Restore Asylum a 4-day event of protest and witness. We launched the project in January and there are folks everyday bearing witness to this atrocity--at the sham “tent courts” and at the encampment in Mexico and now at the airport. 

We witness, then we report back to let others know what’s happening. Come join us any time, at Xeriscape Park in Brownsville. Tell everyone: #RestoreAsylumNow. Check us out at www.witnessattheborder.org.

Sincerely, Margaret

UPCOMING EVENTS

COMMUNITY DINNER ON 2/19/20
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TEAM TLC NYC | OUR MISSION

Team TLC NYC assists and supports individuals and families after they are released from ICE detention facilities and arrive in NYC to await their court dates.  We respond rapidly to urgent basic human needs and provide aid such as warm clothing, hot meals, and personal necessities. We are a community rooted in support and belonging while acting in service to these families.