Day 2 at the Border: Seeking Sources of Hope

Day 2 at the Border: Seeking Sources of Hope

After an emotional first day at the border, our group found strength to face another day of heartache, holding the stories of the people we would encounter, seeking a shred of hope we could to hold onto and share.

After some breakfast tacos - a must when in Texas - we came back to Matamoros.

Clergy and leaders + breakfast tacos = future regret ... but delicious in the moment!

We found some of the people we had come across in the previous day to deliver some supplies that were requested and generously provided by members of our delegation and those who generously supported us back home (more on this later).

Among those was N, whose story touched many on our first day, who was robbed her first night having to live out on the streets of Matamoros, not knowing where would be safe for her to go. Rep Mayfield sought her out to give her a tent and a backpack full of clothing.

We found a families in need of diapers, and we met a new family from Nicaragua, a father and daughter, who were fleeing because the child was nearly abducted to be trafficked - we were told that there was already a buyer for the daughter. They didn't have a tent to sleep in, and so we figured out a way to get one to them, thanks to some amazing on-the-ground volunteers.

Now, before I share stories of hope and inspiration, I feel the need to share a caveat: it is human nature to want to find the good and make any intolerable situation better in our minds and hearts. The risk in doing so is that we can allow ourselves to become complacent in paying attention to the cries of those around us and taking the action that we might otherwise be compelled to take. So, let me say this: these amazing, heroic stories are not solving the humanitarian crisis we witnessed here - but they are keeping people alive. Please, do not let these stories pacify your hearts, let them restore some faith in humanity and what is possible to change ONLY if we keep caring with all our hearts.

1) So, we were able to help the family from Nicaragua because we ran into Brendon and Gabby, two warriors of action in a place that nobody knows what actions to take.

1a) Gabby, who had a baby three weeks ago, but felt she couldn't abandon the people she is helping, came across to update the center she is opening in a few weeks to provide all sorts of assistance to the people living at the border. She is rehabbing an abandoned orthodontics shop to open a center for supply distribution, medical attention, legal aid and job training. Gabby is a person who sees a need and doesn't wait for others to figure it out, she gets it done.
Three days before her baby was born, she created a shower area with platforms and pop-up tents, ways of getting clean water in buckets so people don't have to bathe in the river anymore. She said the urgency to create the shower area came from 2 stories: when a decapitated body floated by people bathing in the river and when a child got swept up in the river and survived, but scared everyone who heard about it.

Gabby showed us showers that had been put up that some people were using, but because it was in a low area, the water would pool up in the area and it smelled terrible and went back to bathing in the river. Instead, she found pop-up shower tents, got some funding for them and an ongoing supply of water, and she trained a young man from Honduras, M, living in the asylum camp to run the showers. He hired three others, and she pays them to put the showers up and down three days a week. As they are working towards installing a water filtration system so they can use water from the river, they are training M to use the system, and wherever he ends up, M will leave this liminal place with new skills that might help him wherever he ends up.  Knowing someone like Gabby is here gives me hope that conditions will improve ever-so-slightly. She said, as someone who was once homeless, she could understand what people really needed, and she seems to be a whiz at getting grants to support her work. We need more Gabbys in this world!

2) Tucker, Sergio and Team Brownsville -

https://www.teambrownsville.org/

Brendon Tucker is an incredible young man who would be totally embarrassed to see any of this (if you're reading it, Brendon, I apologize if this is how you feel, but please read on, and you'll know why I needed to share your story, too). He has jumped in whole-heartedly to dedicate his life for the time being to keeping people alive down here. Constantly quoting Dr. King, Rev William Barber III, and other leaders who have fought or are fighting for the civil and human rights of those who are most vulnerable. He left his work with the poor people's campaign to be present here. He believes in being in the background and doing grunt work, but it was awe-inspiring, watching him run around interacting with people, seeking people put with his list of items, medicines, etc that individuals needed. But without phones, it can be hard to track people down. Yet, he managed to find all but one person today. He shared with us the fact that many people send supplies, but if they have to transport a truckload of goods over the border, they have to pay hundreds of dollars in tarifs/taxes that is not in the budget.... instead, he told me he'd put together a list of items that we could order to the Walmart in Matamoros,  and he'd pick them up to distribute.
He wants to change this so desperately, systematically. But he knows that if people like him are not on the ground, every day, people will not survive. And he stopped his searching to help us procure the tent from his supply stash. We promised to send him another tent to replace that one (and probably a few more, as well). Knowing Tucker is there, leading with his heart, gives me hope that there is someone watching out for people over here. As he said, if more 20-somethings want to come out here and live out of their cars while helping people, it would be good for them.

He's helping Gabby with her work and he also has helped Sergio coordinate Team Brownsville, a group that started over a year ago and has fed the migrant camp twice a day each and every day. What started as a few pots of food on Brendan's stove each day has ballooned into cooking for 1000. They have coordinated volunteers coming from all over the country, days at a time, to come and help cook and feed all of the people in need.
https://www.teambrownsville.org/ for more info about the AMAZING work they are doing.

A train of cars led by volunteers from Team Brownsville leaving the bus station to cross the border and feed 1000+ people.

3) Generosity from back home:
I learned that in the two day period from when we sent a congregational email about this trip to the time I arrived at Brownsville to pick up some supplies before crossing the border, over 50 families/individuals mostly from Or Shalom contributed to raising over $3,000 towards aid for human beings at the border. Thank you,  thank you for caring, for doing something, and for bolstering me in knowing I have not been alone in witnessing all that I've seen here.

4) These incredible leaders I traveled with... the other faith leaders, the folks from PASO, Mano-a-Mano - it had been amazing to see people putting faith into action, walking with empathy and pathos. It seems like we are all in shock, if I had to name the group dynamic. We have been broken, but not in a defeated kind of a way, broken from what we had been, so that there is room in each of us to care more and strive more and differently than we may have in the past.

We ended our time in Matamoros with a small interfaith prayer.

Day 1 at the Border - To Be Heard and Seen

Day 1 at the Border - To Be Heard and Seen:

After arriving in Brownsville and getting oriented to what has been going on over the last few weeks down here and the growing size of the camp of people seeking asylum in the US, we crossed the Rio Grande (which was a lot less grande than I was expecting) via a bridge.

As soon as you get through the checkpoint, you can see the tents lined up all over.

(None of these tents were here weeks ago ... this whole section popped up since.)

Our delegation split up into 8 groups of 3, each with at least one Spanish speaker, to be able to interact with some of the people living at the border. I was grouped with two Illinois state representatives who also joined our trip to see with their own eyes what is happening at the border, state reps Lisa Hernandez and Rita Mayfield.

#selfiewiththerabbi #selfiewiththerepresentatives

As we entered, I was struck by how many children were around. So many children! More on this below...

We first met A, a former businessman who fled Guatamala after being beaten by police for being gay.

When he attempted to report those police, he was then nearly abducted and instead fled. He has come to the border, where he first was kept in a very crowded facility in the US for almost 2 months. He said they went 6 days at one point without being able to shower or even brush their teeth. Then, 5 weeks ago, they brought him back to Mexico to await his asylum hearing, which still won't be until the end of this month. We learned that they were all given temporary work permits to work in Mexico - he is working most days in Matamoros, but it can be hard to find work for many, and as migrants, they are being underpaid, since most employers know how vulnerable they are. On top of it all, he is paying $75 a week for protection until his asylum date, living in one of the tents ... he appreciated my attempted prayer in Spanish with him and especially the card from our Or Shalom families. He cried with us, especially when Lisa Hernandez told him that she would share his story with congresspeople in Illinois.

As we listened to others, A stayed with us throughout the afternoon, mainly because he doesn't have anyone in the camp. At one point, a young man came up to me and asked me what we were doing. I tried to tell him, and bumbled a Spanish answer, and he started telling me his story - that his wife is in the US legally, but he can't get in, and he doesn't know how to make that happen. They are scared for her to leave for fear she won't be let back in....At least I think that's what he was telling me, my Spanish is rusty but has been coming back l'at l'at ... d'oh that was Hebrew for slowly, not Spanish - now you know what has been going on in my cabeza, uh, my rosh, I mean my head.

Jokes aside, I looked up from that conversation, a young man who was all too ready to just share his story and be heard; the others who were talking deeply and intensely with members of our delegation; it hit me that every single person here had a big, deep, intense story. Every tent was filled with stories of people who were afraid for their lives, so much so that they uprooted from everything they knew with the hope of finding protection, somewhere!
Which led to one of the most poignant moments for me - after all this time sharing stories, hearing of the months of journeying to get to the border only to now be waiting for their court dates, we saw a line of people coming from the border, carrying packets in blue folders. We were told that those were the asylum seekers of the day who were all freshly processed and returned to the port from which they came (Matamoros). I saw their faces, in addition to being cleaner than most of the faces around the camp, they had this excitement and hopefulness. Their swagger in their strides shouted to me, "Yeah, we made it, we're almost there!!" And my heart sunk, because I know the reality of the months of living in tents, sleeping on the ground in increasingly dirty conditions, bathing and washing those fresh clothes in the Rio Grande. I could see the temporary court tents that will house the asylum hearings, as we've been told by lawyers on the ground here, mostly via tele-conference with a judge. Very, very few will be granted the protection they seek. Instead, most will leave that courtroom being placed on a plane that will send them to the very country they were afraid to live in. (Sorry, no pictures of this, just the mental shot of a young man, 19-or-so, with sunglasses and a blue hat with a brightly striped shirt, holding up his papers in his hand up high, almost dancing to some triumphant music playing in his head to declare the largesse of this moment for him).

The other poignancy came from watching the kids. On one hand, it reminded me of volunteer work I did in El Salvador, where we saw so many kids who were living in what we might consider squalor, but they were happy. That's the job of a kid, to use imagination and play, no matter what is going on around you. 

I saw an adorable little girl hugging what seemed like a brand new cow doll, just the way my nearly four year old does when she gets a new stuffed animal.


We learned that when people are given their court dates and then sent back to Mexico, they are given work permits to work in Mexico, and there are many who are doing so, but how can a person go to work and leave kids behind in the streets in a camp of tents where you don't know the people around you, new people every day?!  Yet, what choice do they have?

Which drew my attention to another two kids. I watched a young child taking care of his even younger brother - really looking

after him and paying attention to him as a parent would with tenderness and patience, even pausing in the shade for his brother's comfort and to give him water and play with him a bit before continuing their walk. Every little but, he'd stop to pick the little toy his brother was holding, each time bringing a huge smile to the little child's face. This kid had more patience for his little brother than I have had for my own children at times of stress and anxiety and difficulty. Later on, I saw what I'm pretty sure was that toy, left behind along the trail of tents, but I couldn't find any sign of the two kids ...

Heading to the Border

Heading to the Border:

The team of clergy are starting to gather at the airport to head down to Texas this morning.

Thank you to all the generous people who donated money, prayers and even helped make cards during the Sukkot event at Or Shalom!


PS: I learned that 2:45AM is definitely the time to drive to the city to avoid traffic

Being Human, Seeing Humans, Helping Others Feel Human

During Yom Kippur, I offered a sermon about being human this year, challenging us to:

1) See others as human at all times

2) Be human at all times

3) Inspire others to see themselves and those around as human

(For the written version of this sermon, click here)

As I mentioned in the sermon, next week, I've been given an opportunity to attempt part 3 of this challenge by accepting an invitation to go to the border with an interfaith group of clergy from the Chicagoland area to help provide spiritual aid and physical supplies for the human beings stuck in limbo as they seek protection from whence they fled. We will be meeting with individuals and families and we will also be purchasing tents and other supplies for those living on the streets next to the border in vulnerable conditions. Our upcoming holiday of sukkot emphasizes welcoming others and providing for their needs.

Details: We'll be going to the border crossing in Brownsville, TX and the town on the other side of the Rio Grande, Matamoros, where many of the individuals awaiting their trials for entry to the US are living. Our clergy group is traveling with the group PASO - the West-Suburban Action Project - who has developed relationships with local charities in Brownsville who are attempting to address the needs of the hundreds of people living in the streets along the border in Mexico. We will be purchasing tents, sleeping bags and other living supplies to distribute to the people in need.

Background: As part of the Migrant Protection Protocols, the United States policy has shifted in dealing with individuals and families who come to our country seeking asylum. Whereas in the past, people were taken in and allowed to be signed-into someone's custody or in a facility in the US while awaiting their hearings, the current protocols push those people back across their port of entry to await the day of their hearings for asylum. This means people who have fled violence and persecution are expected to wait in Mexico, where there have been little-t0-no resources to provide for their needs. We have been informed that the area we are going, there are about 600 people living in a swath of concrete the size of two basketball courts with no bathrooms, running water, etc. 

To Follow This Trip: I'll likely be posting updates about the trip on my social media - www.facebook.com/rabbimargolis as possible during the days of my travel. Each evening, I hope to post a reflection on the day on this blog. Feel free to friend me to keep up with the trip.  

If You Wish To Help: If you want to help me support the human beings at the border, you can make a donation to Rabbi's Discretionary Fund at Or Shalom - please put in the note "Aid for Human Beings at the Border" and we'll make sure that your donation goes to getting supplies during my trip or supplies for the local charities who are supporting the ongoing efforts to sustain the individuals temporarily living along the border.