Today is day four of the eviction an alternate migrant shelter in Tijuana just down the block from the original shelter at the Benito Juarez Sports Center where 7,000 people from a recent Honduran caravan were living for two months. The shelter spilled into the street when it was filled beyond capacity.
Here’s my piece for the OC Weekly. It’s black valentine to the journalists and photographers still there. It’s asks for a little less money-shot fixation, a little more compassion. Sometimes, journalism is used as a shield. So you won’t have to think about the babies sleeping on the ground in the cold without formula.
The border closing yesterday was political theatre. The notion that a couple hundred asylum seekers with hungry, barefoot children are a national security…
Maria Luisa Cardenas is traveling with her 15 year-old son
Javier Antonio who has Down syndrome. Gangs burnt her house, killed her 2 brothers. She left on
the day of their funeral. Javier is sick. He’s vomiting blood in the camp in
Tijuana. He isn’t getting the right medication.
Frustrated, sick, some hungry others who had just arrived, still exhausted from journey. A couple hundred cops in riot gear for the perfunctory photo op, as corporate news crews pushed and shoved their way to the front for the money shot.
