Reflections from the Borderlands: Panchito y su Cristina

My first ride in an ambulance took place in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Full-on siren blaring, horn honking, careening through unyielding traffic on narrow streets until we reach the emergency room.

I’m riding with nurse/medic Panchito in his ambulance named Cristina. The cab of the ambulance is littered with antiseptic hand sanitizer, a bottle of vitamins, a blood pressure cuff, bandages and ointments, a nebulizer, and anti-bacterial wet wipes—items I assume Panchito reaches for often. The ambulance is not new, rather it hails from the days before power windows and door locks came standard.

Our first patient/passenger is a pregnant woman who Panchito tells me will deliver her baby in the next few days. We transport her from the outdoor basketball court to the emergency room. Asylum seekers typically hang out at the basketball court during the day because it’s so close to the Comedor, run by Kino Border Initiative. The Comedor serves two free meals every day to immigrants, and distributes clothing and personal care items. Our second patient/passenger is a 24 year-old male asylum seeker whose blood pressure is dangerously high. We rush him to the emergency room as well.

I notice that there’s a well-worn Spanish-English dictionary on Cristina’s dashboard. Having lived in Arizona in the U.S. for 33 years, Panchito’s English is excellent. A group from the Tucson Samaritans comes every Thursday and teaches English at one or two of the shelters, or the basketball court. Panchito used to teach with them, but he kept getting called out with emergency medical calls. As we speed across town in the ambulance, he explains to me again: “This is why I was not able to continue with English classes—always too many interruptions.”  

What challenges does Panchito see that the immigrants face in Nogales? 1. They have no money. 2. They’re ignorant of the U.S. immigration process; many think it will be easy to get into the U.S. They have no idea what to expect. This is why I now find myself speeding around with Panchito in his ambulance.

Because I am not an attorney, I cannot give legal advice. But I was able to prepare two simple handouts that explain in Spanish what asylum is, and what to expect if people cross the border and apply for asylum. While I distribute handouts, Panchito communicates the information. He’s fabulous at ad-libbing explanations and examples.

I encourage everyone to speak with a lawyer, at least for an initial consult. Even with a lawyer it’s incredibly difficult to gain asylum; without a lawyer it is nearly impossible. When people ask me how much an immigration attorney costs, I tell them it’s often $5,000 per person, so if they have a family of four, that could be $20,000. However, if you cross the border and end up in detention, your bond could also be as high as $20,000. If any of these people had $20,000 they would not be here. 

Our listeners are very appreciative. One man tells me, “You have given me much to think about. I’m going to find a lawyer, but probably I will stay here and work and live. I just don’t have much evidence to prove my asylum case. Why would I risk being separated from my family and imprisoned in the U.S. for six months only to be sent back?”

Back on Panchito’s daily rounds, we drive two women and a child from the hospital to the Juan Bosco shelter, one of four migrant shelters in Nogales. Several women are preparing tortillas for lunch, and we drop off copies of the handouts I’ve prepared. From there we go to La Roca shelter and deliver the remainder of the handouts.

Panchito tells me they’re expecting another visitor on Thursday, this time a lawyer. My visit is well-timed, offering the people some basic information to consider before the lawyer comes. Do they really have a case for asylum? Do they have sufficient evidence? The immigrants can ask specific questions of the lawyer when he comes on Thursday.

Though my days in Colorado are typically spent driving and hanging around with refugees and asylum seekers, this day in Nogales is special. I’m grateful to have been allowed to tag along with Panchito and experience what is an average day for him, helping migrants in ways he’s particularly suited to do. I’m always encouraged and inspired by being with others as we love our immigrant neighbors together.  

Voices from the Border works in coordination with the Mexican Non-Profit Panchito y su Cristina—nurse/medic Pancho Olachea Martin—who provides the only free medical care to migrants/asylum seekers and those living in extreme poverty in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Please visit the following websites for more information and to donate generously to these excellent ministries:

https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voices-From-The-Border

facebook.com/voicesfromtheborder

https://www.bordervoicesaz.org/voicesfromtheborder

Panchito and his supply of meds.

Asylum seekers gather around Panchito’s ambulance in Nogales, Sonora.

La Roca immigrant shelter perches high atop a giant rock.

 

 

Reflections from the Borderlands: MPP Expands

Author’s Note: This is the third post in a series of reflections from the borderlands. Notice the changes in policy from 2016 to 2018 and 2019. To read Part 1, go to: http://bit.ly/2UJ1YsD. To read the Caravan edition, go to: http://bit.ly/31Zn7R2

Last spring I visited Laredo, Texas, where I volunteered at two immigrant welcome shelters. We were not yet seeing the affects of MPP, or Remain in Mexico, in Laredo.

We were told that Nuevo Laredo, on the other side of the river, is controlled by cartels, so almost no immigrants cross the border there. However, nearby McAllen and Eagle Pass were seeing so many new arrivals that ICE was transporting busloads of migrants to Laredo after their release from la hielera. These were not Greyhound buses, but rather prison buses with bars on the windows. Asylum seekers had everything taken from them at the border, including their identification papers, belts, toothbrushes, and shoelaces. Everything. The first words we heard from some of the people we met were, “Do you have a toothbrush? I haven’t brushed my teeth in four days.”

After suffering such indignities, parents and children arrived at the Greyhound station in Laredo, where we greeted them with smiles and a friendly welcome. We drove them to one of the shelters, where several wonderful things happened. First we gave them snacks and water. Then we helped them call their relatives or friends who were sponsoring them in the U.S. to arrange for them to buy bus tickets to join them. Some relatives also wanted to send cash for the continuing journey, which we helped them do.

Guests were allowed to choose new changes of clothes, from donations we had previously sorted and organized. They got to shower, washing away the layers of dirt and evil that had been laid upon them on their journeys. When the guests emerged from the showers wearing clean clothes and having brushed their teeth for the first time in days, they were transformed. They were smiling, beautiful, and at peace.

Volunteers cooked and served dinner, and we drove many of the guests back to the bus station that same night to make the trip to join their relatives, sending them with prayers, snacks, and toiletries for their journeys. Many others stayed overnight at the shelter, where they slept on mattresses with fresh sheets and pillows, luxuries they were grateful to experience.

We welcomed anywhere from 0 to 80 immigrants each day, offering hospitality on the front lines to brothers and sisters who have experienced a range of indignities. To offer food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing, showers, and toiletries to the weary, hope and hospitality to travelers left me filled with joy and gratitude.

That was in May. Shortly after we returned home, we heard from our friends in Laredo that Border Patrol was now releasing an average of 220 migrants to their shelters daily. In one month, our friends provided humanitarian assistance to almost 5,000 immigrants. 

Then came MPP, or Remain in Mexico.

By the end of June, the shelters in Laredo were no longer receiving any immigrants. Remain in Mexico (MPP) now keeps asylum seekers waiting at the Mexico side of the border. Immigrants are living in make-shift tents with no running water, toilets, or showers. There is no medical care, social support, or education for the children. More than 60,000 people have been subject to this so far. MPP violates due process rights, domestic, and international law. Extortion, rape, and kidnapping are rampant. According to Human Rights First, there have been 636 publicly reported cases of violent attacks against asylum seekers returned under MPP, and the vast majority of such attacks are never reported. Asylum seekers are rendered more vulnerable under MPP by the fact that ICE/CBP confiscates all their shoelaces, making them an easily-identified target for cartels and traffickers. We could avoid feeding such violence by allowing families to seek asylum from within the U.S., instead of returning them to Mexico.

A friend in Laredo knows a priest who runs a shelter in Nuevo Laredo. The cartels know that thousands of asylum seekers are stuck at the border, so that’s where they’re now focusing their recruitment efforts. Cartels target the shelters and demand a percentage of the immigrants there be handed over to the gangs. If the people running the shelter do not comply, they themselves “disappear,” often to be found later, their bodies hacked into pieces. My friends in Laredo hear gunshots daily from across the river.

DHS has set up tent courts in some border towns. Until just last month, the tent courts have not been open to the public or to journalists. Immigrants face a judge and an interpreter on a TV screen, if they speak a language for which an interpreter can be found. About half of the asylum seekers from Guatemala—the ones with the most compelling cases—are from indigenous Mayan communities, many of whom do not speak Spanish. Less than one percent of asylum cases are being granted. In 2019, 5 cases were granted from Guatemala, out of 14,232 applications. Some families are so desperate for the safety of their children that they are sending them alone across the bridge. Unaccompanied children are placed in government shelters until authorities can connect with relatives in the U.S. to whom they can be released.

This past fall, I went to Tucson, Arizona, to volunteer at an immigrant welcome shelter there. For some reason we could not quite figure out, MPP was not yet being enforced at the Nogales border crossing. We welcomed on average 30-40 immigrants per day. We were not the only shelter in town; at the bus station I met volunteers from two other immigrant shelters.

Again, volunteers greeted and welcomed immigrants, and did basic informational intake, including medical history. Guests received medical care if needed, healthy food and drinks, and hot meals. Each family had their own private room, with clean sheets on the beds. They got to shower, select new clothing and shoes, and received help contacting their relatives to buy bus tickets for the next leg of their journeys. This shelter has lots of space where children can play, with toys and books and chairs nearby so adults can supervise. Children can even play outdoors in a large enclosed courtyard. This shelter also boasts an herb and flower garden. When the time was right, volunteers drove guests to the bus station and made sure they boarded the right bus.

Since returning to Colorado, things have changed again. A non-profit in San Diego and Tijuana put out a call for volunteers in late November. At that time there were 15,000 people stuck in Tijuana under MPP. The organization was struggling to keep up with their clients’ needs.

On December 9, representatives of 31 U.S. border shelters who have collectively provided temporary shelter to welcome over 320,000 asylum seekers in 2019 released a press statement calling for an end to MPP. These representatives

“reject the message that our capacity to help is overwhelmed. Collectively, we are here to let the U.S. government know that there is room in our inns. Instead of allowing us to welcome these families, … the U.S. government is returning them to Mexico, where they face homelessness and danger from human traffickers and cartels. As border shelters, we are ready to provide places of safety and welcome to asylum seekers.”

Sadly, the most recent developments in U.S. policy are now requiring some asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador to await their court dates in Guatemala, a dangerous country from which tens of thousands of people are fleeing. Immigrants at the Nogales port of entry in Arizona are now either being bused to El Paso, TX and made to wait for their court hearings in Ciudad Juarez, or are being forced to wait in Nogales.

Contrast the dangerous, unsanitary conditions of tent camps with the welcoming, well-supplied shelters within the U.S. Oh, that our government would allow people of faith to love our neighbors, to show hospitality to strangers, and to care for the most vulnerable brothers and sisters of Jesus, offering them food, drink, clothing, shelter, and friendship, rather than offering them up to violence, fear, and disease. Lord, have mercy.

 

 

Reflections from the Borderlands: Caravan edition

Author’s Note: This is the second post in a series of reflections from the borderlands. Notice the changes in policy from 2016 to 2018. To read Part 1, go to http://bit.ly/2UJ1YsD

In the end of 2018 a caravan of asylum seekers came to the southern U.S. border from Honduras. The journey from Honduras to the United States is long, difficult, and dangerous, motivating many immigrants to travel together in caravans for safety and companionship.

For those who arrived in that caravan, early in 2019, the asylum-seeking process looked like this:

• Arrive at the border. Take a number. Yes, just as you would take a number at the butcher or the pharmacy.
• Wait in Mexico until your number is called (often 2-3 months). Meanwhile, where do you and your family sleep? How do you provide food for your family? How do you keep your family safe? You must stay near the port of entry to keep an eye on when your number might be called. If you miss it, you miss your opportunity.
• Present yourself to ICE/CBP and request asylum. Pass a Credible Fear Interview. In this interview migrants must show that they have a credible fear of returning to their home country, due to persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Generic poverty, gang violence, and domestic violence do not count; asylum seekers must show that they were personally targeted due to their belonging to a specific group.
• In order to be admitted entry to the U.S., you must have the name, address, and phone number of a sponsor in the U.S. Your sponsor will buy your bus ticket and will house you for at least the first two weeks, and will make sure you get to your court dates and check-ins, often in another city. 
• Cross the border. Women and children are separated from men. Everyone goes to the icebox. The icebox serves no actual function, except as a supposed deterrent.
• Be fitted with an ankle monitor. The ankle monitor chafes at your skin, beeps and talks to you, and has to be plugged in—still attached to your ankle—to recharge.
• Be released into the U.S. If you’re lucky, you’ll be released to a shelter, where you can get food, showers, sleep, and help contacting your sponsor. If you’re not so lucky, you may be released to the city park.
• Travel to your sponsor. Your identification documents have been confiscated by ICE/CBP, so you will not be flying. You will take a bus. Imagine all the other things in the U.S. for which you will need basic ID, which you no longer have.
• Report for regular check-ins (monthly or twice monthly) with a private agency contracted by ICE. The agency will call your references in the U.S. every time you check in. You also have weekly telephone check-ins and weekly home visits from the agency.
• Submit a complicated 12-page application for asylum in English. This must be completed before you have been in the U.S. for one year. Six months later apply for a work permit. Meanwhile, where will you live? How will you pay for rent, utilities, phone, food, and medical care? Asylum seekers are not eligible for government benefits, so most have no choice but to work “under the table” in order to survive.
• Attend all of your court hearings. A decision on your case will typically be made within 6 to 18 months.

I am part of a sponsor team for a family that arrived in the 2018 caravan from Honduras. What follows is from my own experience sponsoring this family.

The family we sponsored waited six weeks in Mexico for their number to be called. During that time they rented a tiny room in Tijuana, paid for with earnings the father made doing auto mechanic work. Upon entering the U.S., the family was separated and spent three days in la hielera, or the icebox. All their documents were confiscated and never returned. With no identification, they have been unable to even request new ID from their respective consulates.

Both the father and the (nursing) mother were fitted with ankle monitors. At the first ICE check-in (almost three weeks after their entrance to the U.S.) the mother’s ankle monitor was removed. The father’s monitor presented constant problems, and he had to travel to another city three times to have it repaired or replaced. One year later he still wears the monitor, despite checking in twice a month in person, and every week by phone. The family has home visits scheduled every week. In reality, the agency often does not show up for these visits, but if the father is not home at the appointed time, the agency knows because of the GPS monitor on his ankle. 

The three family members were assigned three separate court dates: one for the father, one for the mother, and a third for their child, who was less than one year old. Honestly, an infant with his own court date separate from his parents? Thankfully, I have a friend who is an immigration attorney who requested on the family’s behalf that the three court dates be combined. The request was granted. How would other families without such resources navigate that challenge?

Although the family is not allowed to work, everyone knows they have to. How else would they survive? They are not eligible for public benefits. Our sponsor team has managed to find (non-government-funded) agencies that offer sliding-scale or free services to immigrants regardless of documentation or legal status. To clarify, this family’s presence in the U.S. is legal—they have been paroled into the country.

What is the good news in this frustrating scenario? Almost immediately after making known the need for a sponsor and a sponsor team, several people from my (relatively new) church volunteered to get involved. Others in the congregation have been generous with donations of furniture, housewares, and clothing. We have learned more than most of us ever wanted to know about the U.S. asylum process. And we have worked together as family to welcome our neighbors. I’m immensely grateful for this church, these friends, and how we have grown together. But these policies? Many of them make no logical sense, and are nothing short of deliberate cruelty. 

That was early 2019, and things have changed yet again. Stay tuned to learn how MPP (Remain in Mexico) continues to affect the most vulnerable of our neighbors.

Photo credit: Special thanks to Nate Bacon

 

 

Reflections from the Borderlands, part 1

Today’s post is the first in a series of reflections from the borderlands, focusing on my own experiences there, changing U.S. immigration policies, and the effects these policies have on people I’ve met.

To read previous reflections from the borderlands, see these posts:

• Frontera de Cristo 2010: http://bit.ly/2S9MlbR
• La Hielera or Welcome to America: http://bit.ly/2vWzxwU
• Baby Jail: http://bit.ly/38cyPtB
• CARA: http://bit.ly/2vjLD2J
• Ten Days at the Border: http://bit.ly/2S9ynXs
• Beautiful Teamwork: http://bit.ly/38biuFL
• 1,000 Paper Cranes: http://bit.ly/31CTrZw

In 2016 I had an opportunity to travel to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, which is about midway between San Antonio and Laredo, in the middle of nowhere. I spent a week working as a legal assistant inside the detention center. This detention center is specifically for mothers and children, and is affectionately known as “Baby Jail.” We did initial intakes of the women’s and children’s basic information, and we listened to their stories and helped them prepare for their Credible Fear Interviews. My heart was broken that week. Many of the women had experienced unspeakable personal violence and carried the stories with them for years, never having told even another family member or close friend out of sheer terror. When they were in a room with a volunteer legal assistant, they almost couldn’t wait to unburden themselves. The days were long, and the experience was eye-opening, infuriating, exhausting, inspiring, and completely worthwhile. I’m glad I went, and I have no regrets. Inspired by that trip, later the same year I completed an intensive course in Immigration Law.

At that time, early 2016, the process for asylum seekers (people fleeing persecution) was as follows:

• Immigrants entered the U.S. at a port of entry or through the Rio Grande. They would immediately surrender to ICE or Border Patrol and request asylum because they were afraid to return to their home country.
• ICE/CBP would transport the immigrants to la hielera (the icebox), a freezing cold holding cell with no beds, and one communal toilet in the open. Women and children were separated from men. ICE/CBP took away all personal belongings, including sweaters, toothbrushes, and hair ties. Fluorescent lights are always on, and immigrants are given a thin mylar blanket and made to sleep on the floor. Food is cold and unappetizing. Most immigrants stayed there an average of three days.
• Some immigrants were then moved to la perrera (the doghouse) for a few days.
• Eventually they were all moved to detention centers. Detention center is a euphemism for jail. There are more than 200 immigrant detention centers located in all 50 of the United States. Detained immigrants are not eligible for legal representation except what they can find and pay for themselves. This is why pro-bono legal services are so important.
• Inside detention, immigrants face a Credible Fear Interview (CFI). In this interview they must show that they have a credible fear of returning to their home country, due to persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Generic poverty and violence do not count; asylum seekers must show that they were personally targeted due to their belonging to a specific group.
• Immigrants who passed the CFI were eventually released from detention, days or years later. Most have to post bond of several thousand dollars (up to $20,000), and have a sponsor already in the U.S. Many are fitted with ankle monitors for several months, and they must regularly check in with immigration officers. Asylum seekers were allowed to live and work in the U.S. until their asylum case went to court, typically about 8-10 years later.

That was in 2016, and it was not a pretty picture then. How have things changed since that time? Stayed tuned for my next posts, in which I discuss immigrant caravans and MPP, to find out more.