WATCH: He Lives Outside Refugee Holding Pen — To Bear Witness

Image by Courtesy of Joshua Rubin

By Ari Feldman November 27, 2018

Joshua Rubin, a software developer from Brooklyn, has been bearing witness to the child refugee concentration camp in Tornillo, Tex., since mid-October.

He sits outside its locked front gate, watching trucks carrying toilets, construction materials and children go in and out. He believes, based on estimates given to him secretly by the camp’s staff, that there are 2500 children inside.

He says he’s doing it because he got sick of watching the news unfold on his TV at home. The distance is taking a toll on him and his family in New York, but he hopes to stay until at least Christmas. He thinks that enough national attention and pressure could shut the camp — run off generators and operated as an emergency field camp — down for good.

“The fact that there are children involved here is kind of a window into people’s hearts,” he told the Forward. “I was hoping I could show people that immigrants are just children who need help.”

Joshua Rubin, Brooklyn, NY, explains how he ended up sitting outside a kid’s’ concentration camp in the TX desert for the last month+ #WitnessTornillo #ChristmasInTornillo #OurKids #ShutItDown #JesusWasAnImmigrant #GoFundMeWitnessTornillo pic.twitter.com/AmIpyFjzIM

— Witness: Tornillo (@TornilloWitness) November 23, 2018

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO