This person worked as a janitor for CBP for a number of years.
This person worked as a janitor for CBP for a number of years. He started collecting what was in the garbage and created a photography project. I don't know if it was intentional or inescapable, but these photos evoke something from another time, another place and it is not a reference I would ever have thought to see associated with the United States.
These are the belongings of immigrants at the southern border left/taken over many years.
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/tom-kiefer-el-sueno-an-americano-project
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/tom-kiefer-el-sueno-an-americano-project
These are the belongings of immigrants at the southern border left/taken over many years.
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/tom-kiefer-el-sueno-an-americano-project
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/tom-kiefer-el-sueno-an-americano-project
Billfolds and Wallets. When first apprehended, detainees are transported to the nearest U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility to begin processing. Non-essential personal property is disposed of during intake. © Tom Kiefer
ReplyDeleteIn what way are those non-essential? And also: what the fucking fuck? You don’t even do that to prisoners, and we all know how dehumanized those are, haha don’t drop the soap.
Indeed. It is not just the photos themselves, although those are bad enough. The explanations only make them more horrible and, to me at least, even more referential.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I can sort of understand it for the giant plastic water bottles — they’re a bitch to store, they’re not relevant when doing anything but crossing a desert on foot, and so on. But billfolds? Shoelaces?
ReplyDeleteNext up on the list; passports, probably. After which you get to throw them out of the country because they don’t have a passport.
Hey, you never know if you'll need a water bottle. Like if you have to walk back to Guatemala.
ReplyDeletePresumably the soap & toothpaste and stuff is because in the detention centers that stuff is provided (I can’t see them not doing so at least at this stage of the descent into concentration camps), and naturally they’d provide someone exiting detention with a free set, at the very least of fresh replacement items for the ones that were stolen.... hahahathatdbesofunnyifitwerevenremotelyfunny. The flatware (quite clearly “the good table silver” for some of them), though, and the earphones... those are not items easily replaced with a nice fresh set. I understand why they don’t want that stuff in their camps, but I really don’t understand how they get away with simply discarding it instead of storing it, like they do for people in prison.
ReplyDelete