EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Emotional scenes of immigrants living in the U.S. hugging relatives from across the border on a makeshift platform in the middle of the Rio Grande have played out repeatedly since 2016 in El Paso.
The “Hugs Not Walls” gatherings were as much a statement against the cruelty of family separation as they were an opportunity for estranged relatives to talk and touch for a brief five minutes, according to sponsor organization Border Network for Human Rights.
BNHR was planning a May 10 (Mother’s Day in Latin America) gathering at the river and got the nod from various government agencies that in the past have provided access and security for the binational event.
“We had the T-shirts ready and had 60 people line up, mostly mothers and their children,” said BNHR Executive Director Fernando Garcia.
But last month, the Trump administration designated the entire Mexico-New Mexico border as a National Defense Area. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has since charged dozens of individuals for being unlawfully present in what is essentially an extension of a military base.
The administration designated a second NDA last week running from the westernmost tip of El Paso to the vicinity of Fort Hancock, Texas. That killed any hope of holding the Mother’s Day “Hugs Not Walls” event.
“It is important to understand that local federal officials, even Department of Defense officials, were sympathetic,” Garcia said on Wednesday. “But a political decision was made (in Washington, D.C.) that this event should not happen.”
So rather than risk arrest for trespassing on the 60-foot-wide military zone, the group, mothers and children plan to gather just outside the zone May 10 in protest.
“Madres de la Frontera: Love without borders” will have people gathered at El Paso’s Doniphan Park on West Paisano Drive looking at their relatives across the border from a distance.
“We are one of the most militarized borders in the world – and we’re not at war with Mexico,” Garcia said. The cancellation “broke the hearts of many families who were going to see their daughters, their sons, their abuelitas (grandmothers). They are not going to be able to do this. The families still want to do something. So, out of this, instead of it being a defeat of humanity, we have transformed this into something else.”
The 10 a.m. gathering will start in a festive mode typical of the local culture — with flowers, balloons and mariachis, the organizer said. But then the speeches will focus on federal immigration policies that separate families of mixed immigration status (foreign parents, U.S.-born children) and a ramped up militarization of the border based on what Garcia and other immigrant advocates say it’s based on a misleading “invasion” narrative.
“When one door closes, we open another door. And we are going to continue to do this until we have our next ‘Hugs Not Walls,'” Garcia said.
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