Atestiguar: Witnessing and Accompaniment in San Diego's Open Air Detention Sites by Danielle Cosmes, American Friends Service Committee, US-Mexico Border Program

The American Friends Service Committee's US-Mexico Border Program created a short documentary film, as well as a written and photographic piece, commemorating the Solidarity Aid Station, which has operated for nearly two years at the Whiskey 8 Open Air Detention Site in San Ysidro, California. The station, which has witnessed and accompanied thousands of migrants seeking safety from harm, is now in transition. We have not seen any migrants arrive at the station in the last month, and the area is likely to see an increased military presence in the coming weeks and months, making our presence as humanitarian workers and human rights observers all the more precarious. As we contemplate the possibility of closure, we find it crucial to create an archive of the community networks that were necessary to build and sustain the station for so long and of the stories of migrants who have passed through the station in their journeys, hoping to reach safe haven in the United States