During the month of July, CPT’s Borderlands project will send a four-person team to enact a 3,000-mile Border Witness Drive organized around the migrant experience within the US-Mexico Borderlands region. The team will engage in public witness and connect with immigrant-solidarity organizations as it travels from Tucson, AZ, east to Brownsville, TX, and then north to Washington, DC, culminating with legislative advocacy calling for comprehensive immigration reform.
CPT’s past work on Borderlands migration issues has focused on the increased militarization of the border, documenting vigilante activity, monitoring treatment of migrants by Border Patrol agents, and providing humanitarian assistance to migrants as an act of political resistance.
In addition to this past work, the Border Witness Drive seeks to:
• connect with churches and advocacy groups;
• lift up the human face of our migrant brothers and sisters;
• foster understanding and compassion towards migrants;
• expose structures of injustice and systemic violence inherent in current immigration policy through public witness actions;
• intervene in situations of physical violence directed at migrants or migrant advocates;
• provide assistance to migrants as needed.
Team members will post regular updates at www.cptborderlandswitness.blogspot.com