TRIP TO THE SOUTHERN BORDER
Lou Haveman
January 10-14, 2022
In January, our group of six women and three men spent a week in El Paso at a non-profit called Abara. We met people who have lived on the border their entire lives, some who cross the border daily, and others who have tried to cross illegally. Some were being deported as we walked across the Rio Grande River on the bridge. We met and listened to border patrol agents and saw the wall Steve Bannon built. We visited one of the dozens of Mexican-side shelters for those seeking asylum. We worked for an afternoon at a US-side shelter for people awaiting the means to travel to their hosts families across the nation. We listened and learned. We were surprised, depressed, and inspired.
Abara. We were hosted by Abara, a three-year-old non-profit organization. Abara—“to ford” or “to cross over”—provides “a place where people and ideas come together to understand each other and address pressing concerns in love.” Food, housing, and transportation for four nights and three days cost us $450 per person. (https://www.abarafrontiers.org/)
Border Patrol. Most are Latino, many with relatives living in Mexico. Agents are not vilified; rather, the job is sought after and the number has tripled since 2000. Armed and prepared, their job is to capture, rescue, and turn over migrants to others (usually ICE) for processing. Their practice is to treat everyone with dignity, and they find joy in rescuing those lost, dehydrated, close to losing their lives in the river or the desert.
The Border Patrol operates under rules and regulations regarding asylum that may change daily, and exercise some personal discretion. They might allow those in custody to simply turn around and retrace their steps or turn them over to detention, but probably less than ten percent get past them. Roads along the 700 miles of 22-foot wall are well graded and monitored by sophisticated infrared cameras and inground sensors, and patrol vehicles respond within minutes. But the wall is scalable and equipment vulnerable to false alarms. The US border states use various means of deterrence, including drug-detecting dogs and National Guard units.
Lou Haveman inspects the border wall.
Migrants. Their make-up has been changing from single men and youth seeking employment to families and mothers with children. A pastor who runs a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez said, “Be assured that almost all of these people are fleeing for their lives and seeking a secure home for their families.” Almost all are seeking asylum, for which they must be on US soil or at the point of entry. The magic words, “I fear for my life!” need to be documented.
Most will be detained and deported to their home country, not to Mexico, at our cost. With an attorney, they have a much higher chance of being allowed to stay; they will be released and provided bus fare to a US city and given a court date. Less than 20 percent disappear. Increasing numbers of migrants are from South America, Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and other countries such as Haiti. Many fled their country several years ago, stayed in another country for a period, and now seek entry into the United States. We were not allowed entry into US government receiving stations, where people can be held for months but were told children are no longer separated from their parents.
Shelters. In 23 government, church sponsored, or non-profit shelters in Ciudad Juarez, migrants wait, prepare, and recoup from traveling hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. At the guesthouse El Buen Samaritano, headed by Juan Fierro Garcia, we were overwhelmed with the love and hospitality of those who have so little, receiving handcrafted “Trees of hospitality” from the children with lots of hugs and smiles.
On the US side, several very short-term shelters care for those who have been released and are preparing to go to their host families and cities. Ciudad Nueva, which grew out of Annunciation House, has neighborhood outreach as well. Many shelters are in very nondescript commercial buildings for their own protection. We volunteered in a shelter that serves up to 500 individuals; most are only in this shelter for 24-72 hours.
Photo from Bev Abma’s video, “Abara Visit 2022 01” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI9UtwOx9gU)
Almost all shelters are staffed by volunteers, young and old, men and women. From as far away as Massachusetts, they work for a couple of weeks or up to months at a time. Food and housing are provided, but no stipend. Many shelters, at least on the Mexican side, are staffed and run by low income and poor churches, many of them Pentecostal. Central American church leaders are engaged in incredible sacrificial work, and they feel alone, often invisible to the church in the US.
Surprised. Six months ago, at Fort Bliss, adjacent to El Paso, 10,000 Afghan refugees were in a tented encampment of. In less than six months, all had been transported and orientated to host cities throughout the country. Ft. Bliss was only one of several locations. How is it that the State Department and Homeland Security can make that happen and not come up with a viable border policy and a resettlement program for vulnerable peoples from the South that have more culturally in common with the US population?
Migration Points to Ponder
Water rights in the Southwest and between the US and Mexico is a huge issue.
COVID19: Title 42 is the latest rationale for preventing anyone who has or had COVID from being accepted as an asylum seeker.
84 percent of the World’s refugees are hosted by emerging and developing nations. Only 3 percent are hosted in the Americas.
70.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes because of persecution, conflict, and/or human rights violations. This is the highest number ever recorded. There were 42 million displaced people ten years ago.
Only a tiny fraction of the World’s refugee population was resettled in 2018, less than 1%. Canada received 28,100. The US received only 22,900. A total of 55,000 visas have been allocated for 2022, spread over many countries.
US drug consumption is a major contributing factor to destabilization in Central America. One person said, “As long as the US demand for illegal drugs is ongoing, there is a moral obligation for the US to take in our Central American migrants.”
Climate change will cause increasing migration around the world.
Detention centers were initially privatized. It was found that they were purposefully holding migrants to reap higher profits. They have been closed.