Friday, March 7, 2008

Roma to Brownsville Walk

Border Fence Protest Walk
Starts Saturday

March 6, 2008 - 8:26PM
For more information:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=20842989896
http://www.borderambassadors.com
More information about the protest is available by contacting event organizer and Border Ambassadors member John Moore at (956) 203-1499.



A South Texas group plans to protest the federal government’s construction of a security fence along the U.S. border with Mexico by embarking Saturday on 126-mile walk across the Rio Grande Valley.

“We have been talking about it for a long time, trying to get the picture across that it is not just Brownsville, but there is a lot of cities that are going to be affected,” said Crystal Canales, a 20-year-old University of Texas-Brownsville student who plans to take part in the nine-day walk. “The main thing is we are trying to support the people who have been sued.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has filed lawsuits throughout South Texas in recent months to gain access to private property to construct a fence intended to halt illegal immigration. In Hidalgo County, the federal government is constructing a concrete wall that also will serve to reinforce the area’s dilapidated levee system.

Canales said the protesters hope to grab the federal government’s attention with their protest march from Roma to Brownsville.

“We don’t want a fence built in our backyard,” she said.

Border Ambassadors, a grassroots network devoted to opposing the border fence and responsible for organizing the upcoming protest, has hosted five protest walks in the Rio Grande Valley, said John Moore, who helped organize the upcoming trek.

The walk, which is open to the public, is expected to start at 9:30 a.m. daily Saturday through March 16. Walkers will begin at the historic plaza in downtown Roma near City Hall and end up at UTB, where a rally is scheduled.

Each leg of the walk is between 10 and 16 miles. Walkers will stay overnight at Catholic churches along the way, or they can arrange for their own transportation between their homes and the starting and ending points each day.

Walkers also are free to participate in as little or as much of the trek as they want, even if that means walking just a portion of one of the legs.

Border Ambassadors has arranged for vehicles to follow along the protest route to carry walkers’ supplies. Participants are advised to bring a change of clothes, a sleeping bag, a water bottle and any necessary medications. Vehicles will also be close by in case of an emergency, Canales said.

Food and water will be provided throughout the walk.

“We think that it would be a great idea to get the community involved,” Canales said. “We think it will be a great way to get not just local attention, but national attention. We are going about this in a peaceful way to get people to listen.”

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

International Women's Day Protest and Peace Walk this Saturday

Hello, Friends and Sisters,

Saturday is International Women's Day.

I am organizing the International Women's Day Protest and Peace Walk against the T. Don Hutto prison that has incarcerated non-criminal, non-Mexican immigrant families seeking asylum since June 2006. Imprisoning innocent children and babies is wrong, and more people of Texas need to stand up and say so.

The peace walk will begin at 3:30 p.m.,Saturday, March 8, at the Heritage Park in downtown Taylor (directions below) and end across the street from the prison, about 1.25 miles away. Please assemble at Heritage Park at 3:00 p.m. We will rally peacefully across the street at the Hutto prison until just after sunset, when we will have a short candlelight vigil and prayer ceremony.

Activists from other groups who staged several protests at the Hutto prison will be joining us. We are all committed to a non-violent peace walk and rally.

To find out more about the Hutto prison:

http://tdonhutto.blogspot.com/

There is a PBS documentary, "America's Family Prison," one can download from the above website. Scroll down and click on "watch short film on Hutto" and it loads immediately if you have high-speed internet.

Please watch the film, write a poem, draw a picture, or make a statement, put it on a posterboard with marker, and meet us there. We'll have water to stay hydrated and snacks. Bring an umbrella in case of rain.

As friends, and as Texas women, mothers, and girls, let's join together and make a stand against this injustice inflicted on women and children by our government. What better way to spend International Women's Day? Men and boys and their poems are welcome, too!

Free the Children Coalition, an ad hoc grass roots organization, as well as other local activists, will be present. Free the Families with Children behind the walls of Hutto prison.

Yours in sisterhood,

Adrienne Evans
Terlingua, Texas
(915) 276-0402 (cell)
(432) 371-2725 (home)

DIRECTIONS TO PEACE WALK:

Take I-35 N toward Waco. From Downtown Austin, about 17 miles.
Take Exit 253, go right on US-79 N, go 15.4 miles into the center of Taylor. Heritage Park is on Main & 4th. The Walk is about 1.25 mile in distance straight down Main St. which converts into I-95. Take a right on Walnut (Martin Luther King Memorial Way) then a right again onto Welch, and you will be in front of T. D. Hutto Residential Center. The street address is 1001 Welch, Taylor, Texas.

PRESS CONFERENCE January 23, 2008 (ACTION)

Photos below taken outside Paisano Hotel, Marfa, Texas, prior to the DHS Open House on that same afternoon.