CREDO Mobile & The Huffington Post & Refuse Fascism & The White House – 2018-11-27 00:05:36
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/no_lethalforce_border/
ACTION ALERT:
Stop Attacking Migrant Families at the Border
CREDO Mobile
PETITION: Tell Secretary of Defense Mattis:
No lethal force at the border
Disgraceful: The US border patrol just tear-gassed mothers with children and toddlers in diapers seeking asylum on our southern border.
Every day, Donald Trump’s white supremacist war on immigrants grows worse. Just last week, the White House issued a memo authorizing the troops at the border to use lethal force against asylum seekers. The tear-gassing of families shows that Trump’s plan to have the military treat immigrants like enemy combatants in a war zone is no idle threat.
This is America under Trump, and it is shameful. Though Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has the authority to order troops to use lethal force, he has not yet done so. In fact, Trump’s order for lethal force may be unconstitutional. It is the responsibility of people of conscience to speak out and demand that Mattis put a check on Trump before the situation gets even worse.
The reports of Customs & Border Patrol’s actions are truly shocking:
Children screamed and coughed amid the gas, The Associated Press reported. The wind carried the aerosol chemicals toward people hundreds of feet away who were not attempting to enter the US, the wire service noted. One woman collapsed unconscious amid the chaos, and two babies sobbed with tears running down their faces from the gas, Reuters reported.
CREDO members will continue to press to end the racist, anti-immigrant culture that gives birth to such horrors. That includes cracking down on ICE and the Customs & Border Patrol’s complicity in terror. The heads of the ICE and CBP unions were in the room with Trump last week when he gave the order for lethal force.
Right now, we need an urgent call to stand down before tear gas turns into live bullets.
Let’s be clear: The United States is not under attack. The families walking from Central America are survivors of deadly state and domestic violence, climate devastation and poverty. They are coming to exercise their right under US law to petition for asylum.
But instead of fulfilling his legal obligation to evaluate their asylum claims, Trump plans to terrorize migrants with military force. His dangerous ploy is part of a white supremacist agenda that includes banning Muslims, restricting legal immigration, separating children from their families and denying citizenship to children of immigrants born in the United States.
Further militarizing the border will do nothing to keep our country safe. But it will terrorize and harm vulnerable migrant families and add fuel to the fires of racism and xenophobia.
ACTION: Tell Secretary of Defense James Mattis: No lethal force at the border.
Thank you for speaking out,
Nicole Regalado, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
Activists, Politicians React With Horror
At Border Scenes Of Tear-Gassed Children
Mothers carried sobbing children away from
Tear-gas fired by US officers at the Mexican border
Mary Papenfuss / The Huffington Post
(November 26, 2018) — Activists, Democratic politicians and others watching the news Sunday reacted with shock at scenes of mothers fleeing with children from tear gas fired by American officers at the Mexican border.
Agents for the US Customs and Border Protection agency fired several canisters of gas after groups of immigrants tried to squeeze through gaps or scale fences at the border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego. US officials completely shut down the port of entry in both directions for several hours.
Children screamed and coughed amid the gas, The Associated Press reported. The wind carried the aerosol chemicals toward people hundreds of feet away who were not attempting to enter the US, the wire service noted. One woman collapsed unconscious amid the chaos, and two babies sobbed with tears running down their faces from the gas, Reuters reported.
A statement from the Customs and Border Patrol agency said that officers responded with tear gas as migrants threw “projectiles,” which hit “several agents.”
The use of force was sharply criticized.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) called on people “uncomfortable with spraying tear gas on children” to join the “coalition of the moral and the sane” to “get our country back.”
Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) compared the Central American immigrants to Jews fleeing Germany, and emphasized that applying for asylum “isn’t a crime.”
Angelica Salas, executive director of The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, called Sunday’s actions “a despicable act.”
“It is a despicable act on the part of the Trump administration and CBP officials to attack defenseless women and children firing tear gas, a chemical agent, at them,” Salas said in a statement. “These are human beings who are reaching a point of desperation because their asylum claims are being processed at a snail’s pace or not at all.”
Amnesty International complained that “families are frightened and soldiers are shooting tear gas at toddlers. We must choose to be better than this.”
The organization noted that President Donald Trump provoked the immigrants’ desperation by sending 5,800 troops to the border with authorization to use lethal force.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) echoed the accusation in an interview on CNN, accusing Trump of deliberately provoking chaos to give him free rein to crack down. She called it part of Trump’s “political ploy” to “stoke fear” about the migrants and react harshly to please his already revved-up constituency.
Others who watched the horror unfold on the news reacted with similar sentiments.
Trump suggested Saturday that the US had worked out a deal with Mexican officials to keep the immigrants on their side of the border as the US processes claims for asylum. But the incoming Mexican government said there is no such agreement.
Trump Crosses Borders to Assault Migrants
Refuse Fascism
(November 26, 2018) — Yesterday, the Trump regime viciously attacked migrants who had marched to the US-Mexico border fleeing violence and desperate poverty in their homelands. After weeks of travel and ten days living in squalid conditions in a stadium in Tijuana, several hundred of these unarmed migrants marched towards.
While they were still on the Mexican side of the border they were violently confronted by Mexican police and then fired upon with teargas by United States Customs and Border Protection officers.
Our activists, with the Los Angeles chapter of Refuse Fascism, were on the scene, joining with and leading people on the US side of the border to protest this unjust violence by the US and to raise the demand that the whole fascist Trump/Pence regime that is responsible for this xenophobic barbarity MUST GO!
RefuseFascism.org speaks at the San Ysidro crossing to Mexico Sunday November 25
Donald Trump has no right to lecture about the “sanctity of borders” as his border patrol violently assault unarmed migrants on the other side of the Mexican border.
The US, under his instruction, fuels Saudi warplanes carrying out a genocidal assault on the people of Yemen. Trump himself escalates the threat of war against Iran, in the South China Sea, and against North Korea. Last we checked, none of those places were within the US borders!
History will judge us all by how we acted in this time of advancing fascism — and make no mistake, that is what we are facing. Trump’s assault on migrants and immigrants is the linchpin and battering ram of a radical fascist remaking of this country which will affect the lives of billions on this planet if it is not stopped. And only the people can stop a fascist America. This can be done by driving out this regime through our massive, sustained, nonviolent political protest.
This is the mission of Refuse Fascism. This is what our activists down at the border are fighting for now. This is what we are building and preparing for nationwide. This is what we are asking you to step up your involvement and support for now, while there is still time.
In the name of humanity, let us REFUSE to accept a fascist America.
The Situation at America’s Border
The White House
Yesterday, US Customs and Border Protection agents and officers effectively and professionally managed an extremely dangerous situation involving more than 1,000 individuals who sought to enter the United States illegally.
CBP was forced to close the San Ysidro Port of Entry (POE) near San Diego, California, to ensure public safety and security. The POE remained closed for about 5 hours. After attempting and being prevented from entering, a group of migrants tried to breach legacy border fence infrastructure and sought to harm CBP personnel by throwing projectiles.
Four agents were struck by projectiles — most likely rocks — but were wearing protective gear and did not suffer serious injuries. [Fake News Note: A rock is not a projectile. A projectile is “a missile designed to be fired from a rocket or gun.” — EAW.]
As they dispersed a violent crowd, CBP made more than 60 arrests. Of the thousand or so protestors involved, only a handful of minors were present. The vast majority of participants were single male adults.
Both American and Mexican officials say these actions are not consistent with peaceful asylum seekers. On Friday, Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum declared a humanitarian crisis in his city, which he said was struggling to accommodate the influx. “No city in the world is prepared to receive this,” he said.
US Border Patrol leaders have made clear that a wall is needed to preserve law and order. “One thing we saw that we could absolutely use yesterday was infrastructure,” Border Patrol Chief of Law Enforcement Operations Brian Hastings said. “That infrastructure was breached yesterday. We are repairing it now, but without a doubt, we could use a wall in an area like that.”
