Illustrating Immigration began as a project to tell stories about people who moved from one country to another and what they noticed when they got there. From the beginning, we have included difficult migration stories because we recognize that not everyone migrates under the same conditions, and millions of people face closed or restrictive borders that limit their ability to move.
Over the past year, as we have heard and witnessed stories of suffering on the U.S.–Mexico border, we have felt moved to help bring an end to these human rights abuses.
Few journalists, politicians, or civilians have been allowed to see the conditions at U.S. immigration detention centers. In an effort to raise awareness, we’ll be sharing illustrations of court statements from people who have been held by U.S. immigration authorities and experts who have evaluated them.
Our goal is to raise awareness so that these abuses end and no person is ever hurt like this again. To paraphrase Nora Ephron, years from now, we may say many things about this period of U.S. history, but we will never be able to say we didn’t know what was happening.
These statements were collected by legal professionals representing children in court. The documents were filed in June 2019 and were made public, with personal details redacted, in July 2019. We accessed them via the National Center for Youth Law.
Illustrations by Anja Riebensahm.
Anja Riebensahm and I are continuing our project Illustrating Immigration. This time Anja will be illustrating stories from immigrants of all ages! If you have moved from one country to another, fill out our survey, and/or send it to someone else who has.
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