These Artists Created Their Own Ice Box To Protest Border Detention Facilities

By Caitlin Cruz


On April 6, 2018, the Trump administration introduced a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy aimed in particular at the U.S.-Mexico border, which resulted, among other things, in the separation of children from their families. Adults were charged with criminal offenses of against the law entry, as a substitute opposed to civil offenses, and detained in detention facilities where people — including young children — were huddled with each other in freezing-cold cages. At the height of the crisis throughout the spring and summer of last year, it was hard to disregard the disturbing images of those conditions procured through strict media tours of the facilities. By executive sort, the Trump administration eventually rescinded the zero-tolerance policy that resulted in family member separations (to dubious results) on June 20, 2018, although reports of the hieleras, or ice boxes, didn’t go away.


Nevertheless, these detention techniques were not new. In February 2018, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing the experiences of 110 females and children detained in U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding cells about the conditions: lowered temperatures, confiscated sweaters and clothing layers, a Mylar blanket for warmth. Only right now is the world finally paying attention to the plight of migrants on the southern border. This is why RAICES, a non-profit business that provides free or low-cost legal services to immigrants and refugees and one of the leading voices on family member reunification, opened a new art installation in the middle of Austin, Texas, just in time for the city's megapopular SXSW festival. (If you’re in Austin, the installation is at 308 Guadalupe Street.)


Austin-based artists Yocelyn Riojas and Jerry Silguero created a 8-foot-by-20-foot hielera, complete with a cooling device that lowers the temperature by at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Any time while you enter the hielera, you’re immediately met by sculptures of young children (about 8- or 9-year-olds) constructed out of packing tape with anonymous white masks on their faces. These lit sculptures are sitting on benches and laying on the ground, surrounded by flowers.


“These sculptures are transparent to resemble the loss of identity of this very oppressed community,” Silguero tells MTV News. “We wish to keep them anonymous. The tape creates a ghost-like feel.”


Even harder to don't think about is the audio playing indoor within the space, that of a young child describing their experience in U.S. Custody, including time in a detention similar to the recreated hielera. (RAICES refused to give more identifying specifics to protect the child’s privacy.) The child describes being chased by a dog, apprehended by a Border Patrol agent, and being handcuffed to her family member members. “From there we stayed sitting and so they would take other people and we were there waiting to be picked up to be taken to the hielera,” the girl says in Spanish. (For those who don’t understand spoken Spanish, there will be a English language translation projected onto the wall.)


The girl talks about how she was separated from her brother and put into a cramped room with other detained people. “I wouldn’t lay down. I couldn’t sleep as the place was long and wide,” the girl says. “On the ground there was nothing for us to lay down on, also it felt frozen.”


The young girl goes on to describe her depression and boredom, nausea and fever, chills and hunger. Her experience isn't unique, according to Ana Maria Rea of RAICES, who adds that the audio gives back some firm to these detained people.


“What we want people to understand is at the level of apprehension is that we are human,” Rea tells MTV News of the inspiration for the installation. “Where they are being kept is inhumane and not okay.”


Silguero and Riojas want attendees not have the ability to look away, so they made the sculptures to illustrate the lived experience of detained migrant people.


“We don’t know who these kids are, what their stories are, we don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” Silguero mentioned. “I wanted to prepare them on a three-dimensional space so it was harder to disregard. You can’t change the channel. It’s present, it’s physical, and it’s impossible to ignore.”


In conjunction with the installation, RAICES reported their #AbolishICEBox campaign, which petitions U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP to stop holding detained persons in cold rooms.


“In this particular administration, the violations that have happened are egregious,” Rea tells MTV News. “We want policy change, congressional action. We’ve experienced what this democracy can do in terms of voices. We can push for congressional action and policy change for the customers we serve. A big objective of putting this platform out there really is to eventually get our policymakers and congressional members to prepare a difference in this human rights issue.”


It was also essential to the artists that the installation highlights the ways in which immigration issues affect people of all races and ethnicities, not only Latinx people (despite the Trump administration’s concentrate on Mexican and other Latinx people at the U.S.-Mexico border). Any time once you leave the hielera, attendees can visualize a six-foot-tall yellow mural featuring nearly two dozen people holding banners that bear messages like “My Dreams Are Not Illegal” and “Stop Separating Families,” along with a chain-link fence covered in yellow bandanas. “This distribute is affecting a lot of different communities,” Riojas tells MTV News.


To that end, the categorize is inviting guests to write about what immigration means to them on the bandanas. If you’re unable to visit the free installation in Austin, Rea says you could still get involved by tweeting #AbolishICEBox and calling your representatives to urge for Congress to take action against this practice.


For Riojas and Silguero, art is their way of speaking up. “The way I know how to fight back and resemble my community and retaliate is my art,’ Silguero tells MTV News. “We just wish to put this on blast and ensure folks are talking about issues essential to each person. We’re not here to be ignored.”