On Monday, the US Defense Department the Trump administration is preparing to send as many as 5,200 troops to the US-Mexico border, in response to migrants and asylum-seekers coming from Honduras through Mexico. President Trump has also said that he plans to send as many as 15,000 soldiers. In a Fox News interview on Monday, Trump said: “If they apply for asylum, we are going to hold them … We are going to build tent cities. We’re going to put tents up all over the place. We’re not going to build structures and … spend all of these of hundreds of millions of dollars. We are going to have tents, they are going to be very nice, and they are going to wait. And if they don’t get asylum, they get out.”

To reinforce his anti-immigration stance, Trump continuously reads a poem called “The Snake” at his rallies. As this Washington Post article details, Trump has been using the poem as a tool for immigration fear mongering, but…”the poem originated in the 1960s from soul singer and [social justice] activist, Oscar Brown Jr.” Brown’s family has asked Trump to stop using it. Trinidad (Trini) Sánchez is former director of Honduras-based Red Comal, a network of rural communities that work to promote human rights, rule of law, and social justice for poor farmers. Now based in Chicago, Trinidad is just back from Honduras. He’ll tell us what he’s seen.