Texans protest border wall, imprisoned children (updated)

Who were those private security guards? They would not identify themselves.

"We don't have to tell you who we are," was the response from most of the guards when Texas residents asked them.

Some of the private security guards said they were hired in a package by Homeland Security, while others said they worked for the company hired to produce the EIS. This company is e2M, headquarted in Denver with offices in San Antonio and San Diego.

Already outraged over Homeland Security's plan to seize private lands in Texas to build the border wall by way of the law of eminent domain, residents said the secrecy and oppression tonight was meant to send a signal.

"This is our government at its sleaziest," said human rights activist Jay Johnson-Castro, in a telephone call at the conclusion of the meeting. "It was meant to diffuse the opposition. It was shocking and alarming. They tried to numb us."

At the so-called hearing, Texas residents were seated at separate tables to give their testimony to stenographers with translators. There was no open forum for speakers.

"There was no opportunity to cheer on great speakers like Elouisa Garcia Tamez, Lipan Apache. This was the divide and conquer approach." "It was sort of like 'meet the teacher,' a real grade-schoolishness' to the whole thing."

The so-called EIS hearings going on in Texas now, didn't happen in Arizona. In Arizona, it was difficult to even locate a copy of the pitiful environmental assessment for the border wall.

When the Sasabe border wall was being built, the community had not even seen the environmental assessment, which this reporter located tucked away in the Arivaca library.

"There's no consistency," Johnson-Castro said, referring to the mish-mash of assessments and border walls being strung across the US. All federal laws were voided by Homeland Security in Arizona, including environmental laws protecting endangered species and laws protecting American Indian remains.

The ancestors of the O'odham were dug up by the contractor Boeing building the border wall on Tohono O'odham land, transported off O'odham land, then later returned for burial.

But in Texas, border residents, including mayors, are ready to fight. Referring to tonight's pitiful hearing, Johnson-Castro said, "Homeland Security didn't do this in Arizona because there is no solidarity in the opposition there."

Tonight, Texas residents want to know who were the private security guards.

"They sure looked like mercenaries, hired guns. Why were they paying guards with US tax dollars when they could have used the Border Patrol?" Johnson-Castro said, pointing out that there are thousands of Border Patrol agents in the region. Johnson-Castro said tonight's scenario was the sign of things to come: More profiteering at the US/Mexico border.

It is another drain of US tax dollars, accompanying the US privatized prisons now being packed with captured migrants with a price on their heads.

On Sunday, Dec. 16, a vigil will be held to free the imprisoned migrant and refugee children of Hutto prison near Austin. Candles will be lit for hope, as those gathered remember the children imprisoned. Migrant and refugee children were forced to wear prison uniforms and drink spoiled milk. Migrant women were chained to their beds during medical examinations and one woman was sexually assaulted by a prison guard in front of her child. Hutto is the same prison that denied entry to the United Nations Rapporteur Jorge Bustamante on migrants in May.

Meanwhile, BBC World Service's Outlook aired a program from the Tohono O'odham border in Arizona on Wednesday, Dec. 12. The interviews are with two Tohono O'odham women, Ofelia Rivas and Angie Ramon.

Ofelia Rivas talks about the new passport law and how the border wall is slicing through the O'odham ceremonial route and communities. Ofelia tells how construction of the border wall has already resulted in O'odham ancestors being dug up from their final resting place.

Angie Ramon remembers her son, 18-year-old Bennett Patricio, Jr., run over and killed by the US Border Patrol. She also talks about how O'odham live in oppression in this militarized zone. The US Border Patrol, National Guard and other federal agents are in the desert and others patrol by helicopter. O'odham fear going into the desert alone to walk or gather their wild cactus fruits. O'odham and their visitors are followed by tribal police.

The BBC program is reported by Brenda Norrell and recorded by KXCI Tucson's Amanda Shauger. Listen to "Nation Divided?" on BBC World News online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/outlook.shtml#Wednes Photos at: http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/ Below is the link to the draft EIS for southern Texas, which includes the law of eminent domain, the US seizure of private land for the border wall. Land owners will no longer have land within 60 feet of the border for agricultural or commercial purposes.

The EIS describes the jaguar and other endangered species threatened by the border wall in Texas, but in Arizona, Homeland Security voided all those laws and is building the border wall anyway.

Texas residents are asking these questions:

--Why is this expensive EIS process underway in Texas if all lands will be seized anyway, and all federal laws tossed out and court orders voided, as was done in Arizona, to build the border wall?

--Will the US government be able to use the private land it is seizing for transportation and utility development, ultimately to benefit its own corporate buddies profiteering at the US/Mexico border?

(Download EIS now, available online for 45 days, beginning Nov. 15)
https://ecso.swf.usace.army.mil/PublicReview/Draft%20RGV%20EIS_small%20f...