Back to the Border
This July I had the opportunity to return to El Paso, Texas to continue some of the connections I made back in February 2018 when I went to the border as part of CA’s 9th Grade Intensive program. I also wanted to bring my son Henry (class of ’21) who had not been able to go on the original trip. My first visit had been such a powerful and informative experience, I wanted to go back to see what else I could learn.
Spanish teacher and 9th Grade Dean Meg Hill also traveled to El Paso this summer and established a volunteer connection with an amazing new nonprofit called Casa del Refugiado (CDR). Founded by El Paso native Ruben Garcia, whose Annunciation House has been a mainstay of border support services in the city since the late ‘70s, CDR opened in the Spring of 2019 to house the hundreds of people in the area who had been released from detention centers and awaited court hearings on their asylum cases.
After a brief check-in at our hotel, and a quick observation of the border wall, Henry and I were whisked off to CDR and were immediately put to work. We brought some donated items from home (caps, shoes, shirts, and belts mostly). As we offered our manual labor and human support, what struck us the most were the many stories we heard in the two full days we spent there.
There was a father with two teenage children (17-year-old son, 14-year-old daughter) who had traveled “tres meses, tres dias” from Honduras. As he tried on a new belt in the clothing room, he showed us his oversized jeans—now at least five sizes too big—that he started the journey wearing. He was coming to the U.S. to meet up with a brother he hadn’t seen in years for better educational opportunities for his children. He mentioned, as did so many others, that gangs had been harassing him and his children for years. We didn’t have the heart to ask why their mom wasn’t with him. He was so determined, so upbeat still, and his kids could have been from our neighborhood. He found a new belt, cinched up his old jeans, and went on his way.
I should note that belts and shoelaces are taken at the detention centers. There is concern that having either of these clothing items poses a safety risk for the migrants themselves or for others. Thus, many of the released people show up at CDR without shoelaces on their already worn-out shoes and without belts. The agency has obtained bins full of shoelaces but belts are in very short supply. (We brought a dozen or so and all were gone within hours.) The belt problem is exacerbated by the fact that the majority of migrants have lost significant amounts of weight on their journeys.
Another poignant story involved a family of three escaping violence in Mexico. The man’s brother had been kidnapped and held for ransom. The family somehow came up with the ransom money ($100,000 pesos) but the kidnappers ended up taking the money without releasing the brother. Fearing for their five-year-old daughter (one of the most spirited and charming of the kids we met), they left even though both had good jobs and a middle-class life in Mexico. Other family members remain behind in hopes of securing the kidnapped brother.
One Guatemalan refugee found my son in the hall one evening. He asked if he could get back in the clothing room because he had left his identification back in there. We expected that he meant his folder of Homeland Security paperwork that all the migrants were clutching as they entered the facility. But instead, once he re-entered the room, he headed to the shelves where donated shoes were kept. He found a battered pair of kids’ shoes (his daughter’s as it turned out). He reached in and peeled back the inner lining of one of the shoes, then extracted a tightly packaged plastic bag that held his national ID and a few important phone numbers. Throughout the entire journey his eight-year-old daughter had been the one who secretly held these important pieces of paper, just in case the man was mugged or endured some other mishap along the way. When his daughter exchanged her old shoes for a new pair, she had just left the other ones behind, not knowing what had been kept in there. (See picture.)
In general, the young children we encountered—so spirited and funny and cute—acted like kids everywhere. Whatever trauma or hardships they had experienced, they didn’t show. They just wanted to play with each other and with the volunteers. There were no language barriers.
Ciudad Juarez, the major Mexican city just across the border from El Paso, continues to have its own struggles, most of which emanate from the general lack of economic opportunity. We walked into Mexico with little or no fanfare and spent a nice morning in the business district that is steps away on the other side of the Rio Grande. (Coming back into the U.S. took much, much longer.) The latest challenge facing Juarez is the new policy that most people who wish to make asylum claims in the U.S. must remain on the Mexico side of the border. The delays are extensive and the metaphorical line is long. The city is doing its best with limited resources to accommodate people from Central America, Brazil, and Cuba (amongst other places). That said, every citizen of Juarez I have met in my two trips to the border has been gracious, family-oriented, hard-working, and interested in fostering a spirit of cooperation and good will between the two countries.
Having been to El Paso twice (and planning to return next summer), what can I add to this ever-present immigration discussion? My first-hand interactions with this topic have led to several key takeaways for me.
- This is a complex, multi-faceted issue that requires multi-pronged solutions; too much of the rhetoric tries to over-simplify the topic. Looking for villains and heroes is equally simplistic: not every ICE agent is a monster, not every asylum seeker is a saint. Flipped another way, not every ICE agent has the national security interests of the U.S. in mind, nor is every migrant a drug dealer. These are all real people whose experiences and motivations run the gamut.
- Furthermore, our border crisis is part of a worldwide calamity of displaced people; there are millions of refuges all over the world seeking relief from unimaginable conflicts such as civil wars, gang violence, genocide, and economic hardship. Climate change is making this situation worse and will continue to do so as people flee areas affected by rising water levels, natural disasters, and hotter temperatures.
- The nonprofits who help asylum-seekers, documented immigrants, separated families, and other humans with compelling stories are woefully mismatched against the resources of the U.S. government. For instance, CDR is run entirely by unpaid volunteers; lawyers and doctors are working pro bono to help people, and volunteers are enlisted (as we were) to perform vital tasks from the moment they arrive. Perhaps this mismatch is appropriate given national security interests. But it’s hard to watch on a human level.
- My son’s advanced knowledge of Spanish was extremely beneficial to him during our time at the border, and I am grateful for the CA education he has received thus far from teachers like Sara Monterroso, Jane Kelly, and Lisa Todd. There is nothing better for language acquisition than real-life, authentic experiences. Seeing him helpfully and cheerfully interact in Spanish with people aged 2 to 72 was one of my proudest parental moments.
- Every American who has the means to do so should visit one of the major cities along our southern border to better understand the incredible challenges and uplifting stories that naturally occur there. So many people are doing great work for other humans in these cities, including our often maligned border patrol, and the whole environment is a microcosm of what is simultaneously inspirational and frustrating about our country.
- The situation is ever-changing. While we were there, El Paso was experiencing a strong uptick in Brazilians and Cubans seeking asylum in the U.S. In most cases these are people who came thousands of miles because of economic hardship and/or violence at the hands of police or government officials. In both cases these are folks who may have the means to first fly to Mexico City or Panama City and go from there; typically, they are slightly better off financially than their Central American or Mexican counterparts. This creates some tension amongst the groups and a “pecking order” of status. But once they get to the U.S., there is very little distinction made. Although the U.S. government has typically been sympathetic to Cubans fleeing Communist oppression, that has changed in recent years (starting in the Obama administration). The problem is Cuba has typically not allowed its deported citizens back in, meaning these people can be in limbo. Right now they are being asked to remain in Mexico, and that is putting stress on the services in Juarez. Brazilians have the added dimension of speaking neither Spanish nor English, but Portuguese. (We noticed that Portuguese translators were in short supply at CDR.) In many cases, they have also been misled back home about the potential opportunities and the ease with which the asylum process works. Like so many vulnerable people around the world, they are getting scammed.
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