May 2 Protest Outside ICE “Family Detention Center” in Dilley, Texas
May 6, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Editors’ Note: The Obama administration has instituted a series of highly repressive anti-immigrant measures throughout the country, and especially along the U.S.-Mexico border. A new prison for immigrant women and children in Dilley, Texas—the largest of its type—is a cornerstone of these vicious attacks. On May 2, a protest was held outside the gates of the Dilley prison. This letter reports on the protest and a bus ride that took people from Houston to Dilley.
On Saturday, May 2, 300 people from all over Texas and as far away as Iowa marched in Dilley, Texas, against the immigrant detention center there, and against the brutal incarceration of innocent women and children fleeing poverty and war in Mexico and Central America. We caught a ride on a bus chartered by the ACLU and spent the trip digging into questions of revolution, the new synthesis of communism, the conditions of intensifying civil unrest in Mexico, and learning what young people are grappling with as they fight to SHUT DOWN these prisons. The march took over the highway at one point. At the rally, there were moments full of emotion as people considered the bland exterior of buildings surrounded by razor wire and heard the call of former prisoners, including children as young as four years old, to “let them go!”
Younger folks and immigrants were especially attracted to the Revolution newspaper as they were introduced to the Revolutionary Communist Party and the leadership of this movement for revolution. Thirty copies got out, and one person made a $20 donation to the revolution. “I want to talk to anyone who thinks that communism could produce a viable society,” said one young woman. And various others considered this program up against everything from anarchism to lobbying the legislature and trying to work through the labyrinth of the legal process.
At several points people wanted to know more about what would be different in this new society and were intrigued by the idea that one of people’s main responsibilities would be to break down the divisions between those who worked with their heads and those who worked with their hands. What would that mean on the job and in the community? One big question was: WHY this government was jailing innocent women and children?
A freshman who had just established a new student organization said, “If they would only recognize what they have actually done to people all this time,” talking about the history of this country. She and her friends were challenged to think deeper about what it would mean for a country like this to admit that “there would be no United States as it exists today without slavery,”1 or the history of genocide and the robbery of the lands of Mexico.
Almost a third of the marchers were older members of Methodist congregations and other churches, some of which had contributed greatly to cover the expenses for this action. These folks were particularly interested in the Dialogue on Revolution and Religion, and one of them invited us to join them in a showing of the new film and further dialogue on what humanity needs.
1. “There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.”—Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:1 [back]
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