Reporter
Washington Post
Theresa Vargas reports for WashPost:
. . . .
“I believe when I go to do this work, I need to integrate myself into the lives of the people I’m covering,” he says. “I don’t want them to see me as above them. We’re on the same level; we’re human.”
That context is needed to understand why Dennison entered the Darién Gap several weeks ago and why, unlike other photographers and videographers, he didn’t take any security guards with him.
That decision would end up giving him a different experience from that of others who have gone there to document the harrowing passage. They have left that jungle and come home with photos that show the horrific struggles of others. He almost didn’t leave the jungle, and he came home with only a fraction of the photos he took and with his own horrific story.
“What he’s been through is horrible and really disturbing,” says Erika Pinheiro, a lawyer who is the litigation and policy director of Al Otro Lado, an advocacy and legal aid organization that serves migrants, refugees and deportees on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The organization has been working with Dennison to create a film that captures the experiences of U.S.-bound Black migrants.
“The only way to understand it is to see it, and that’s what he’s providing,” Pinheiro says. “It’s really important that people understand what’s happening, and that it’s not over in Del Rio.”
The Biden administration recently cleared out a border camp in Del Rio, Tex., where an estimated 15,000 migrants, most of them Haitian nationals seeking asylum, had gathered. The clearing out of the camp came after viral images and video footage showed Border Patrol agents on horseback grabbing migrants and charging at them. In one video, a young girl in a mint-green dress scrambles to get out of the way of a horse heading toward her.
President Biden decried the agents’ actions, and the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into the incident.
But what happened in Del Rio captures only part of what many Haitians experience to get to the United States. Many pass through the Darién Gap, some with children in tow and infants strapped to their backs or chests. Officials in Panama have said that a record 70,000 people traveled the 66 miles through the terrain this year.
Before going, Dennison did extensive research on what to expect: spiders with bites that can cause death within six hours, criminals who routinely rob travelers, and polluted water that if not filtered can sicken you. But nothing, he says, could have prepared him for what he experienced.
“When you’re in the jungle, you’re no longer a filmmaker,” he says. “You’re no longer a humanitarian. It becomes about survival.”
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Read the full story at the link.
Sad as truth is, it’s not rocket science:
- Desperate people do (and will continue to do) desperate things;
- For forced migrants, the dangers of staying will always exceed those of leaving;
- “Die in place” isn’t a “policy;”
- “Deterrence only” can’t work in the long run;
- While institutionalized racism has a long history in U.S. immigration policy, it’s never been a good policy for America, nor will it ever be!
Honestly, where does the Biden Administration get these folks who don’t “get the obvious,” lie about it, and then expect good results?
Right now, after nearly eight months, the Biden Administration still appears to be in no better position to process the next border influx than they were on January 20, despite numerous warnings and eight months of graphic practical and humanitarian failures. Racially charged rhetoric and more cruel, wasteful, dishonest enforcement and removals won’t do it!
We need reopened legal border ports of entry staffed with more and better Asylum Officers overseen by a pragmatic progressive corps of expert Immigration Judges and a BIA composed of progressive asylum experts with the guts to knock heads and get our broken border legal system back to functionality. To state the obvious, that would promote consistency, transparency, and take some of the pressure off of the Article III Courts!
Because neither Mayorkas nor Garland is committed to taking the bold actions necessary to change the dynamics at the border, America, the Biden Administration, and vulnerable legal asylum seekers appear headed for another four years of avoidable failure with all of its unhappy human and political consequences!
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
10-03-21