In December some of the IRTF staff traveled to El Paso, TX, to take part in “Christmas in Tornillo” at the detention camp where the US government is imprisoning upwards of 2,700 Central American teenagers in questionable conditions. Participants of the 10-day rally sang carols to the kids inside the barbed wire fence and chanted “No están solos” (“You are not alone”). The demonstrators’ nonviolent direct action culminated on New Year’s Eve when they held banners and blocked an entrance to the detention facility, also blocking the road to the US-Mexico border crossing.

The circumstances of Jakelin Caal Maquin’s death are being seized upon as evidence both for and against the Trump administration’s hardline approach to immigration

murder of seven-year-old Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin while in Border Patrol custody

US briefly shuts crossing and fires teargas to repel groups of people including children