Warday

People in through-cars aren’t supposed to get out in restricted-immigration states, but a restless murmur went among us when we saw them being herded off the train and into holding pens.

The Georgia Patrol wears green. They look like park rangers, not at all terrifying like the California Immigration Police. But they herded a thousand children into a fenced enclosure suitable for perhaps three hundred. They crowded them there in the blazing sun, the ten supervisors among them. A tall black man stood just inside the gate, clutching a sheaf of papers. We could see his mouth moving as he obviously tried to reason with the patrol officers.

“This is outrageous,” a woman said.

A man went to the door of the car. “What’s going on?”

He was ignored.

Jim got up. He took out his Herald News identification and strode out onto the platform. Most of the other passengers followed him, myself included.

“I’m a reporter,” Jim said, flashing his papers. “Can I see the commanding officer, please?” The patrolman to whom he spoke shook his head, but in disgust, not refusal.

“Just what we need,” he said. “Do you travel with ’em or what?”

“I think the press has a right to know what’s going on here. These kids are bound for Alabama. Why are you taking them off the train?”

Another patrolman came over. His underarms were wet. He was haggard, his face covered with sweat. “I’m Captain Howell,” he said. “These children are not bound for Alabama. They’re going back to Pennsylvania.”

“The hell they are, Bob Howell,” a man’s voice boomed out. We all turned to see a stocky gentleman in a cream-colored suit coming down off the Georgia car.

“Lord, if it isn’t T.K. What the hell are you doin’ all the way up here in Toccoa?”

“I just come from a meetin’ of the Southeast Funeral Directors in Greensboro. Look here, Bob, I want to know what’s goin’ on. You can’t just herd them kids into that hot corral. You’ll have some dead babies on your hands, man.”

“They can’t go any farther. We got a bulletin from Alabama about them. They haven’t got room for them down there.”

“We’ve got papers,” the leader called from the enclosure. “We’ve got all the authorizations we need.”

“What he has is a permit from Pennsylvania. The Northeastern states send these kids down here without so much as a by-your-leave. They figure we won’t turn away a bunch of helpless orphans. You know how many of these kids have come down this one rail line in the past six months? Eighteen thousand and change. We can’t handle ’em, T.K. We’ve got to send ’em back.”

The children, I noticed, were scarcely aware of the drama on the platform. They were going about making their new place as endurable as they could, tying blankets to the fencing to create sun shades. The babies and the little ones were kept in the shaded areas, watched over by the supervisors and the older kids.

The woman we had talked to on the train came to the edge of the enclosure. “We’re going to need water and milk,” she called.

“We can’t stay in this sun without water and milk.”

A woman on the platform began to cry. She wept bitterly, her fists clenched, her body bent as if the least weight would break her in the middle.

“Do you have supplies for them, Captain Howell?” Jim asked.

“There’s plenty of water. And we can give them a few gallons of milk for the babies.”

“They sure must be hungry, Bob,” his friend T.K. said.

“We don’t have a budget to provide food for detainees.”

“I hate to hear you talk like that, Bob. It makes you sound like a nasty little peacock, and I don’t think you’re really that way at all.”

“Look here, T.K., I’ve got a job to do—a job you wouldn’t do when you were asked.”

“I’m in a critical profession, Bob, as you well know. I’ll tell you something, if you can’t find a way to provide for these kids, you shouldn’t be in this job yourself. Now you find them more than water and milk. They need food. They’ve gotten little enough on the train.”

“I can’t go all out for every bunch of orphans—”

“The hell you can’t! And don’t you dare say ‘orphan’ like it was a dirty word. Kids like these are the future and honor of this country. There’s no shame in being an orphan, Bob. Look at ’em. They oughta get medals, the way they behave. Now you take care of ’em or I swear I’ll see you outa that pretty uniform inside of a week!”

The people on the platform broke out into applause. The captain promised to provide the children with food, and to let them wait for the northbound Crescent under the trees beyond the platform.

As our train pulled out, I found myself full of a mixture of anger and a curious sort of hope. I saw something in those kids that is strong. And I saw strength also in the way the passengers jumped in on their side.

The train picked up speed past Toccoa, and we moved on toward Atlanta through the warm October morning.