Postcards from the Border: Day 5—Justice & Advocacy

Tina Schlabach, pastor of Shalom Mennonite church in Tucson, reminded us that our justice work should be seen as reparation, as healing for all of us, rather than as white saviorism. We must both work for harm reduction and join the struggle for liberation, to change oppressive systems and structures. She also reminded us that justice work is God’s mission, in which we are invited to participate. 

Schlabach has led church members in visitation and letter writing to immigrants in detention, through the Casa Mariposa Detention Visitation Program. CMDVP provides support, friendship and encouragement to immigrants in detention in hopes of breaking the cycle of isolation. 

The Shalom congregation is inclusive and intercultural, incorporating three languages in their worship and life together. Members are actively involved in community and migrant justice work. 

Finally, Schlabach led us in physical healing exercises connecting body, mind, and spirit for justice work. Capacitar seeks to empower people to heal and transform themselves in order to heal injustice and build peace in the world. 

Our virtual learning tour ended with a discussion on how to advocate effectively for change, led by MCC staff.

With this virtual tour, I was happy to reconnect with some people and agencies I already knew. A refresher and update on the facts is always good too. But most of all I was encouraged to see the good work of people and agencies about whom I previously knew very little. There is a network of good being done at the border and beyond; many of the individuals and agencies are working together. I was likewise encouraged by my cohorts on the tour and the good work they are doing across the country.

If you enjoyed this series and want to learn more, I encourage you to read some books about immigration, starting with The House that Love Built, by Sarah Jackson. Watch some films. Participate in some classes and webinars—there are many available! And consider taking a border learning tour yourself, virtually or in person—it just might change your life. 

Learn more about Casa Mariposa here: https://donorbox.org/cmvisitation

Check out Capacitar here: https://capacitar.org

Learn more about MCC’s advocacy work here: https://mcc.org/get-involved/advocacy

Postcards from the Border: Day 4—Immigrant Welcome & Support

Katherine Smith of MCC spoke about Casa Alitas immigrant welcome shelter in Tucson, which I’ve visited and written about before. It was interesting for me to get a more complete picture of the history of the shelter, from a five-bedroom house to the monastery to the current facility. After two days of heavy emotions on our tour, Kat tried to focus on the joy that pervades Casa Alitas. It’s here that families first feel a true welcome into the U.S. They get to shower and rest, eat well, and make travel plans to reunite with their families in the U.S. Joy indeed!

Next we heard from the National Immigrant Justice Center about how they are working to undo the past four years of atrocious immigration policy and make it right. The NIJC provides comprehensive legal services to low-income immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Some of the systemic challenges they and their clients face every day include: racial profiling, police accountability, threat of raids and other enforcement, traumatized families experiencing and recovering from separation, and continued U.S. reliance on immigrant detention. I was encouraged by the important work they’re doing.

Check out their work here: https://immigrantjustice.org

Postcards from the Border: Day 3—Border Militarization & Deaths

Today Saulo Padilla of MCC spoke to us about migrant deaths in the desert. Thousands of migrants die in the desert, but it seems that only NPR ever covers this tragic news; nobody else wants to talks about it.

Again, we see how economics and U.S. policy feed both the need to immigrate and immigrant deaths. Before 1994 Mexico had a very strong corn market. But with the implementation of NAFTA and subsidized U.S. corn production, Mexican farmers could no longer compete, and they lost their land. At the same time, the U.S. was sending factories to northern Mexico where they employ cheap labor and abide by fewer environmental regulations. Former Mexican farmers moved to the north for factory jobs, and others crossed the border for jobs in U.S. factories and agriculture. Rather than updating immigration laws held over from 1965, the U.S. focused on enforcing outdated laws, building walls through and near border towns, which forced immigrants farther out into the desert and mountains. Thousands died. As with previous deterrence policies, the walls proved expensive and lethal, but they do not deter immigration. Immigrant crossings and immigrant deaths have continued at a steady pace. And forget about the drug dealers we are supposedly keeping out: about 90% of illegal drugs come through ports of entry, not through the desert.

If we had been touring in person, we would have visited a Border Patrol facility and visited with agents. Instead, Padilla encouraged us against dualistic thinking that pits good guys against bad guys, reminding us that even border patrol agents should not be dehumanized. Many agents are young and far from home. The job gives them an attractive starting pay that requires only a high school education. Agents are armed to the teeth and spend hot, lonely, long shifts watching sections of fence rust. Some are veterans suffering their own PTSD, and some are children of migrants. Suicide and DUIs are on the rise among agents, as they are victims of the same systems that oppress the migrants.

Álvaro Enciso, an anthropologist by training, is an artist who was born in Colombia. Since 2012 Enciso has created and planted about 1,100 crosses in the Arizona desert to mark where immigrants have died. Enciso understands that each death affects not just the person that died, but their entire family. So he set out to make the invisible deaths visible. Enciso makes sturdy wooden crosses, paints them in bright colors, places a red circle in the middle to represent the circles used to identify human remains on maps, and decorates them with discarded cans he finds in the desert.  He knows his work will never be finished, as more than 3,335 bodies have been found in the Arizona desert alone since the office of the medical examiner started to keep track in 2001, and the deaths continue to happen. Though Enciso is always under surveillance in the desert, some ranchers build fences to keep him out, and others vandalize or even steal his artwork, still he continues his mission to make the invisible deaths visible.

Click here to read and listen to Álvaro: http://bit.ly/PeacMind

Click here for a beautiful story about Álvaro’s work: http://bit.ly/Josseline

Photo credit: Álvaro Enciso

Postcards from the Border: Day 2—Courageous Immigrant Rights Activists

Dora Rodriquez fled El Salvador in 1980 when she was 19 years old. You may remember that Oscar Romero was assassinated in El Salvador in 1980. The civil war (financed by the U.S.) killed more than 75,000 Salvadorans, including three of Dora’s close friends, targeted for their religious and social connections. That’s when Dora knew she had to leave. Rodriguez was one of 46 Salvadorans who traveled north together and crossed into Organ Pipe National Monument in the U.S. Abandoned in the desert, thirteen people in Dora’s party died, including three teenage sisters.

Dora is now the director of Salvavision Rescue Arizona. Salvavision helps refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers navigate a global migration crisis by providing aid and resources, while building stronger communities in Arizona and abroad. They support asylum seekers in detention with letters and phone cards; they communicate with and reunite families; they support immigrant shelters on both sides of the border; and they support a women’s embroidery group in El Salvador, Nogales, and Tucson. 

Read more about Dora’s work here: https://www.salvavision.org

Click here for a beautiful story about the embroidery group: https://bit.ly/bordadores

From Arizona/Sonora we moved to Brownsville/Matomoros with Angry Tias & Abuelas (Aunties & Grandmas). Angry Tias & Abuelas works with Team Brownsville along the Texas/Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley to provide meals, legal aid, and sponsorship to asylum seekers in make-shift camps. The U.S. State Department gives these border towns a Level 4 Travel Advisory—the same as North Korea, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq—due to violent crime. Kidnapping and rape are rampant, as is murder for organ harvesting, depression, and suicide attempts. This is where the U.S. is forcing asylum seekers—who are by definition fleeing violence, torture, and persecution, and “coming the right way”—to wait for entry to the U.S.

Day 2 has been an emotional ordeal. I’m always inspired to see people working to bring justice and compassion in the most difficult settings.

Check out Angry Tias & Abuelas here: https://www.angrytiasandabuelas.com

Postcards from the Border: Day 1—Root Causes & Just Coffee

In 2010 I took my first learning trip to the U.S./Mexico border, and it changed my life. That experience catapulted me into my work with immigrants. Last week I took a refresher virtual border learning tour, covid-safe from my own home, and priced right with no travel or hotel costs. Also no amazing Mexican food or walks in the desert, but that’s virtual travel in the covid era.

Immigration work is lonely business. Let’s face it: most people are selectively blind and deaf, blissfully ignorant of U.S. immigration policy. So I was overjoyed to find 10 traveling companions on my virtual border tour, people who both follow Jesus and serve immigrants. 

Another advantage of a virtual learning tour is that we were able to travel to Guatemala, Mexico City, and multiple U.S. and Mexico border states with no long drives or flights. On Day 1 we began in Guatemala learning about the root causes of immigration. It’s a complex issue of interrelated causes that can be summarized as follows:

1. The structure of the global economy. The U.S. has jobs that need people to fill them. People move to where there are jobs. 
2. Violence, especially against women and indigenous people. Not just violence, but violence with impunity. Going to the police in many countries will not bring justice; it is more likely to bring retribution and further violence. 
3. Climate change. Every year there is less land that is suitable to grow coffee as the climate grows hotter and dryer. And let’s not forget the two horrific hurricanes that passed through Central America recently just a few weeks apart.
4. U.S. policy, both current and historical. The U.S. has a history of propping up corrupt elites in Central American governments, leaders who fill their own pockets but spend no state money on infrastructure such as roads, schools, or hospitals. In 1954 the CIA overthrew Guatemala’s democratically-elected leader to protect the profits of United Fruit Company, just one example of how the U.S. has been on the wrong side of history in Central America. Structural racism and colonialism produce extreme wealth inequality and unequal land distribution. The U.S. has essentially run Central America like a plantation, using the local people as slaves to produce crops we demand. The coffee and bananas grown in Central America are grown for the U.S. market; people I know from Guatemala and Mexico only drink instant coffee, not even knowing how a good cup of coffee should taste.

Also on Day 1 we visited Café Justo in the Mexican border town of Agua Prieta. Café Justo goes beyond even the gold standard of Fair Trade; it is also organic estate coffee. Café Justo believes in delivering justice to its owners, employees, customers, and the land itself. The coops are owned by the farmers, and they control the processing, roasting, transport, marketing, and sales of their own product, cutting out several middlemen to keep prices competitive and farmers on their land. 

What started in 2002 with 20 families, in five years grew to three additional coops, and has now grown to more than 100 families! Coffee farmers are now returning to their farms in Chiapas and going back to school. They finally have the power to decide to stay on their land and stay in Mexico.

Order Café Justo at https://www.justcoffee.org