Wednesday, October 16, 2019

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 ...





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