Soriah, bowing

I have made photographs of about half the monthly walking meditations that Portland Buddhist Peace Fellowship has led 22 times. On the second Thursday of each month, beginning in June of 2017, a small group of dedicated people have silently circumambulated the ICE Detention Center in Portland, walking the conviction that no human being is illegal, that migration is a human right, and that our current administration’s policies against immigrants from south of the US border is racist and violent. 

Last year, the route of our meditation became the Occupy ICE encampment, and that lasted nearly two months, until it was swept away by Portland Police.

One of the people who frequently walks with us is Soriah Hamide, bowing toward the ICE Building in this photograph. She says she is atheist or agnostic, but if she had a faith it would be Buddhist. Much of her family is Muslim (from Palestine), and she cares about hate crimes. 

Muslim bans and border walls, detentions and deportations, incarcerations of people seeking asylum: we cannot sit still and do nothing while this happens in our name. Until we see clearly what else we can do, we continue walking, three times around the building, once a month. Then a bow. Then we search for what else we can do.