Tucson, AZ is located 80 miles north of the US-Mexico border. It is the complete opposite of being in New York in that immigration and migration are not issues you can ignore. They are integrated into the daily life of every Tucson resident. I learned this very quickly. The first few months were a rough time. All of my communitymates were more or less set in their views on the issue. They jumped right into organizations such as Samaritans and No Mas Muertas. I felt very confused and isolated at times. Not fully understanding my opinions on the issue. About a month into my time in Tucson, I was introduced to an Americorps Vista who worked directly with migrants being released from detention on humanitarian parole to reunite with family in the US while awaiting their hearing. One afternoon, I got out of work early and offered to help them out for an afternoon. On this day, I met a migrant woman from Honduras and her three year old daughter. The woman was fleeing from her husband after years of violent abuse. With my very broken Spanish, I helped her pick out clothes from the program's clothing closet, heated up some soup, and just talked with her. It turned out it was her daughter's third birthday. Trying to make them feel welcomed and comfortable, the lead volunteer and I found a cheese danish and a small candle. The little girl was so excited to be able to celebrate her birthday and the mother was grateful we could make this special for them. After that day, I really started to think about my views and what they are rooted in. I realized they were not really supported in much of anything other than what I had heard growing up on Long Island.
This past month, I was fortunate enough to go to Nogales, AZ, USA and Nogales, Sonora, Mex. with my community and the Albuquerque JV community. Our program coordinator set up a border immersion trip to experience the issue of migration first hand through the Kino Border Initiative, a Jesuit-run, binational organization focused on the issues of migration (https://www.kinoborderinitiative.org/). On our first day at the border, we walked across into Nogales, Son. and visited El Comedor. El Comedor is a place where recently deported migrants can come for a hot meal twice a day, as well as receive medical and financial assistance. When the migrants are detained by US Border Patrol, everything is taken from them. Any money they had is returned upon deportation, but in the form of a check. These checks cannot be cashed in Mexico, so it is useless and the migrants are left with nothing. There is a group of people who come to El Comedor and cash the checks so the migrants can have their money back. There is a group who takes inventory of things taken by Border Patrol and not returned. More often then not, the items migrants are missing are paper documents, mainly IDs. This becomes an issue if a family member wanted to send the migrants money, they need a form of identification to pick it up. (Side note: most migrants are not deported back to the port of entry close to where they crossed, therefor many of them are forced to travel extremely long distances back to where they came from. Oftentimes, families are also separated and deported to different ports of entry and must attempt to reconnect without knowing where each member is.) This group of workers offer their name to the families and will pick up the money transfer for them. There is also a medical person there five days out of the week to offer anything from medication, to bandaids. Deported migrants can visit El Comedor for eight days after deportation.
Some pictures from El Comedor.
Between meals at El Comedor, Thomas brought us to a women's shelter for women and children who were recently deported. There, again with Karina's translating help, we spoke to one of the women. She had been living with her husband and two daughters in Florida for several years, when she got news that her mother in Mexico was sick. She began sending money to help her mother in Mexico. Her mother kept asking her to come see her, but the woman at the shelter knew going back to Mexico would be very risky. Her husband and daughters did not want her to go back, but she missed her mother so much she had to go. When she arrived in Mexico, she found out that the money she had been sending to help her mother was being pocketed my someone else. She was scammed and lost a lot of money. After a few weeks, she decided to return to the US, where she was arrested, detained, and deported. She is now separated from her immediate family who is still in Florida. Her family in Mexico will not help her, because they believe she had abandoned them by moving to the United States. As we were all crying with her, what she said shocked us. Through her own tears, she told us how grateful she is --- grateful that her daughters still have a bright future in the United States, grateful that they can attend schools and gain higher education, grateful for the people at El Comedor and the women's shelter for welcoming her with open arms and for helping her get back on her feet in Mexico.
Downtown Nogales, Son. was once flourishing with business from American people, including dozens of celebrities. After the militarization of the border and the construction of the wall, many once thriving, such as La Caverna, are left abandoned.
The following day, we hiked the migrant trails through the desert and to the border with a group called the Samaritans (http://www.tucsonsamaritans.org/). We hiked 3.5 miles before dropping food bags and water at the border for migrants who are traveling. We learned that it is about a 2 day walk from where we were in Nogales the previous day to this point of the border. Here we could really see how militarized the US-Mexico Border is.
Top: Downtown Nogales, Son., Mex (18' metal wall)
Bottom: Migrant trails (some sticks and barbed wire with a gate)
After serving the second meal at El Comedor on that first day, we crossed back into the US and stayed at the Jesuit Residence in Nogales, AZ. We talked with the Jesuits there and casually debriefed about everything we saw and experienced. Fr. Pete, asst director of education for KBI, told us the best thing we could do to help the issue of migration is to go back and tell people what we saw, tell them stories about the people we met, and tell them how this isn't a political issue, this is a humanitarian issue. And so here I am writing this post, to do all of those things.
Since then, I have faced a lot of tension and resistance when relaying my experiences to my family and friends back in the Northeast. The people who are so desperate to come to the United States are in no way living a comfortable life. They are desperate. They are also some of the strongest people I have ever met. With this new, first hand knowledge and experiences, to answer the question "Why can't they just wait in line?" my answer is, is they could, they would, and since they can't, as fellow human beings, we need to reach out and help them.
PS- For the people who like logic and facts, here is a flow chart depicting exactly why these migrants are fleeing the violence and poverty in their county without "waiting in line":
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