In Memory of Anne Frank.

Anne Frank

August 4 is the date the Nazis found Anne Frank in 1944 and sent her and her family to a concentration camp.

Just one of the terrible anniversaries that come in August.

In 1941 the US refused entrance to Anne and her family.  We must not let that continue to happen.  We must stop sending illegal immigrants back to countries where they will be killed.

But now that 32-yr-old child, Steven Miller, has the nerve to call Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statue of Liberty "meaningless."

https://twitter.com/AnneFrankCenter/status/892835153126543361/photo/1

Steven was a high school classmate of one of my daughters--Santa Monica High School, class of 2003.

May the evil he does return upon him.

This photo of Anne Frank shows her as a confident, valued writer at such a young age.

What would she have written had she grown to adulthood and lived her life?

Death in ICE custody: Mother, sister mourn

I mourn with Estela Gonzalez-Gadba and her mother.

Thank you to the Los Angeles Times and Andrea Castillo for reporting the death of this 32-year-old son:

"Omar Epifanio Gonzalez-Gadba left his home in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, last October without saying goodbye to his mother.

Five months later, on Tuesday, she got word that he had died from injuries sustained in a suicide attempt at a Southern California immigration detention center."

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-nicaragua-0331-story.html

"He is the fifth detainee to die in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this fiscal year," Castillo continues.

He was the first to die at the Adelanto Detention Facility near Victorville since December 2015, and the fourth since it was built.

His crime?  Trying to re-enter the US near the Otay Mesa border portal, which is near San Diego.

He had been deported to Nicaragua in April 2016, after three attempts to enter the US.  When he returned and crossed again near Otay Mesa on Dec. 29, 2016, he was arrested by border patrol agents.

He was taken to Adelanto, and then asked to be placed in administrative segregation, something that can be granted for medical reasons or for their safety, especially if they are victims of assault by other detainees.

He had no criminal history.

We are the criminals--we who allow our government to arrest and incarcerate people for months if they try to enter our country for a better life.

If you want to help, get involved with
Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC).
http://www.endisolation.org/

CIVIC Co-Executive Director Christina Fialho has called for an investigation into Osmar's death.

http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/20170329/immigrant-advocacy-group-calls-for-investigation-of-adelanto-detainees-death

US Border atrocities

Our border agents are harming so many people...

1) From teleSUR, a television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela:

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Family-of-Migrant-Killed-by-US-Border-Agents-Wins-Settlement-20170304-0002.html

The family of Anastasio Hernandez won a $1 million settlement, despite the fact that the 12 border agents who beat him to death were never charged.

On Thursday a judge in San Diego approved a US$1 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of a Mexican migrant who was beaten to death by 12 border agents in 2010.

2)  From Amnesty International:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15a90cbca2cf8eb7

Moments ago, Sara Beltran Hernandez was released. 

Sara is a 26-year-old mother of two who fled to the U.S. to escape gang and domestic violence. But despite having a claim to asylum, she was locked up for 15 months. ICE officials refused to release Sara on parole even after she collapsed in her cell as a result of a brain tumor.