Summer in El Paso

It rained all day yesterday and the roof of the shelter failed us miserably. Several of our rooms had gaping holes where you could directly see up to the sky. All of our trashcans became temporary water collectors.  It sounded like a waterfall as we fell asleep. In the morning, we joked that it could pass as a modern art installation. 

Today, I took a mother and son to the hospital with the hope of seeing the son's 14-year-old girlfriend give birth. The son is 18 years old.  The couple was separated while waiting for entry into the United States. The girl went into labor and was immediately taken to a hospital in the US. Because they had been separated so abruptly and quickly, the young man was extremely worried about her documents.  He told me repeatedly that immigration took everything away from her—clothes, phone, possessions. Though he and his parents had been released by ICE with papers, he was concerned that they wouldn't have any way to identify her.  His mother held his hand and had tears in her eyes when we left the shelter.  On the way to the hospital, I learned that his brother had been killed just a month ago by cartels in Mexico. Like so many, they left in fear for their lives.  After the father was dropped off here and we figured out where his "wife" (as he referred to her) was i...

It rained tonight for the first time all summer. Before it started, I walked outside to look at the sunset. The sky was a yellowish orange and dark clouds loomed on the horizon. Gusts of wind blew dust up into my face.  At around 9:30 pm, the skies opened up and fat droplets fell down. It felt like the desert breathed a sigh of relief, like its pores had been drying up for weeks and were finally being given the attention they needed. The roof started leaking pretty badly and guests gathered to watch a steady stream of water land on the floor. They clapped. I ran to get a mop.  As we watched the rain fall, I thought about the novelty of every little thing for our recently arrived—whether it be their first rainfall in the US, their first bite of a Rice Krispy Treat, or their first plane ticket.  People love look at the map we have hanging up outside the kitchen. They point at El Paso and try to figure out where they're going. They're amazed at the grandioso nature of the Un...

I spent Monday of this week with a family staying at our shelter in Juarez. They are from Honduras, but left because of gang activity there. The father told me that he didn't want his kids growing up in a place where they would fear for their lives while playing in a park or walking to the corner store. He didn't want to be pressured into joining a gang himself.  They left Honduras two years ago, and have stayed at various shelters in Mexico, waiting for approval into the United States. There are four of them—their kids are one and four years old (the youngest was born in Mexico).   The mother was deported from Mexico three times. And though the father has MPP status, the mother and baby both don't.  Their story is not uncommon, but what struck me about this family was living and coexisting with them for a day. Because of COVID and gang activity in Juarez, the family isn't allowed to leave our shelter. They spend most of their days in two rooms. They do needlepoint, ...

Meet Leandro Enrique Mendez Zuleta. He's a friend and fellow volunteer from Maryland who makes the guests smile and laugh like no one else here. He's always eating Chips Ahoy, organizing a soccer game, or sitting down to a meal with a recently arrived family. His energy is contagious and we are so lucky to have him on our team.  N: At home, you're a valet driver and you have a close relationship with your family and friends. What inspired you to come down to El Paso?  L: It was mostly for the experience. I wanted to live by myself. I'm 20 years old and a commuter for college so I've never really had the chance to completely leave the house. Especially with COVID, I was at home for over a year. I wanted to do something completely different with my life. That's what inspired me to come down.  N: And now that you're in El Paso, what's your favorite part about being here?  L: Honestly, it's been meeting all the other volunteers. Everyone is so great and ...

I spent the afternoon walking around downtown in search of a bookshop and stumbled upon Cinco Puntos Press (which I highly recommend to anyone who finds themselves in El Paso). It's a general trade publisher that focuses on fiction and non-fiction works dealing with border issues.  My favorite book I flipped through was called  Unaccompanied— a collection of poems by author Javier Jamora.  Jamora himself was born in El Salvador and crossed as an unaccompanied minor. His writing seeks to convey what the experience is like, combining testimonies and his own memory.   A poem I thought was especially beautiful: .... Let Me Try Again I could bore you with the sunset, the way the water tasted          after so many days without it,                     the trees, the breed of dogs, but I can't say                    there were fort...

An old Guatemalan man I talked to today swore that he made it across the border because of the luck of the moon cycle.  "Hardly anyone makes it over," he told me. "For every twenty people that try, one gets lucky, and I was one of the lucky few." He is deeply spiritual, and said that if God wills you a safe passage, you'll likely make it. If God is unwilling, you'll have no chance.  "Thanks to God I am here. I never imagined I'd make it," he said.  The moon was full Friday night when he crossed. He waited on the Mexican side of the wall, watching ICE officers creep by. After one patrol car went by, he waited for two more to pass, and then waited another thirty minutes to be sure they were gone.  He said that the officers usually point their lights into the bushes, trying to catch any sign of movement. They're sneaky and they have the uncanny ability to catch most—if not all—attempts at bolting.  Because there was so much natural moonlight, ...

I woke up at 7 am today to the announcement that we had 150 guests. I spent the morning running around the office fielding phone calls, pinning up travel arrangement forms, and helping people with medical emergencies.  Around mid-morning, a pregnant Haitian woman who was four months along told me in half-Spanish half-Creole that she was having contractions. Contractions at four months didn't sound good, so we reached out to the midwife we have on call to get advice. She picked up the phone and told us she was in the middle of delivering a baby and that she would call back soon.  With 150 guests and over 70 travel arrangements to make, the phone was ringing off the hook. I had to keep track of flight confirmation numbers, bus shuttles pick-up times, and people with four or five complicated names that I had never heard before in my life.  Before the midwife called us back, a different pregnant Haitian woman on crutches came to the office in tears. Her husband was detained a...

It would be easy for the average person visiting Casa del Refugiado to focus on the hard things—the unimaginable hardships most guests have been through, the metal cots, the lines of porta-potties, the half-broken showers.  The Red Cross meals that are served here consist of crushed red meat, canned beans, bread, and occasionally a piece of fruit or a donut from the shop down the road.  It usually smells a bit like human waste. Because of the high volume of new arrivals we get every day, the floors are never clean. The trashcans always seem to be overflowing.  This week, we've been dealing with a heat advisory of over 105-degree temperatures every day, and all of our swamp coolers handily broke four days ago. They have not been fully repaired.  If I was visiting CDR for the first time, it would be impossible not to focus on the stench, the food, the heat, and the desperation.  But what would be lacking in an off-hand assessment like that is the perspective and t...

At our shelter in Juarez, this short story is hanging on the wall. I liked the message so I copied it down.  As an old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them back into the sea. Finally catching up with the youth, he asked why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun. "But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," countered the old man. "How can your effort make any difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it safely into the waves.  "It makes a difference to this one," he said.  (Our shelter in Juarez.) 

Two unbelievable stories of courage:  The first was a very pregnant migrant woman on her way from San Diego to Miami. She went into labor in the middle of her flight and the pilot had to make an emergency landing in El Paso so she could deliver her baby.  She was brought to our shelter downtown late at night. Though she had bruises all up and down her limbs (from who knows what exactly), she was calmly carrying her newborn baby boy, just 7.5 hours old.  The director of the shelter said said that she seemed unfazed—just happy and tired.  The second was an undocumented migrant woman who fell on her climb down from the fence and seriously cut up her hands. We wrapped bandages around her damaged fingers.  She told us that she had crossed alone and hidden in bushes to avoid ICE officials. She's likely one of the lucky few that made it across this way.  She hadn't seen her husband in a year, and was terrified to go through the airport. A lot of undocumented peopl...

I sometimes write short lists of "pillow thoughts" before I go to bed, inspired by Sei Shonagon's Makura no Soshi. The work is a connection of loosely connected anecdotes, poems, and personal observations spurred by Shonagon's daily life.  Here were my pillow thoughts last night as I fell asleep.  Exciting things: Clean sheets. Freshly baked bread. A recently bought plane ticket. Solitary things: Showers. Long poops. Reading a book. Going for a walk. Smells: American Red Cross hot meals. Meat and beans. Things that make you sleep: Tea. Long drives. The droll of the announcer’s voice as he reads the news out loud in the early morning. Things that wake you up: Coffee. Loud construction. Excessive sunlight. Anxious thoughts. Complicated things: Crying with each other. At first for ourselves, then for one another, then for everybody. Things you’re scared of: Falling. Loud noises. Conspiracy theories. ICE officers.  Things that make you glad to be alive: Belly laughter. Ol...

What keeps me going here are the little things.  From today:  1. The Haitian woman who blew me a kiss after I gave her two peanut butter sandwiches. I blew her a kiss back.  2. The little boy with the biggest smile who hugged a soccer ball and rolled around on the ground. 3. The guests' excitement at seeing bananas after not having fruit for so long.  4. The undocumented girl who cried when I told her that she was courageous for wanting to come across the border to send money home to her injured father.  5. The cookies I baked and left out for the volunteers.  6. The good laugh me and a family shared when I accidentally gave them a broken flip-flop for the shower.  7. All of the children who run around in a pack and scream with joy—finally safe and able to relax after months or even years of travel.  (Seven photos of the shelter to match my seven little things).  (Our intake room.)  (Where we print peoples' documents.)  (Walking int...

I did intake two days ago for a middle-aged woman and her young daughter, who was holding an itty bitty baby in a soft grey blanket. About two minutes into our conversation, I realized that the baby had been born five days ago, and that the girl was fifteen years old.  They were Indigenous, from the Amazon Basin in Ecuador. They spoke softly and were quite shy, never really looking me in the eyes.  When I gave them COVID tests, both of them cried. The baby woke up and started crying, too. After they each tested negative (thank goodness), I found the girl a baby sling and a breast pump.  It made me think about a couple of things. First—how unimaginable it would have been for me to even think about having a child at the age of fifteen, how unprepared I would have been, and how scared. And second—how lucky I am to have an ample supply of COVID tests and resources like clean clothes and baby slings.  I remember reading an article in July last year about how devastating t...

A little over a week ago, we received a family with a transgendered mother. They have been staying at the shelter indefinitely because no one they know in the United States wants to sponsor them (to help them buy their ticket and get to their destination). No one wants to sponsor a trans-family.  It makes me wonder if this is common. More generally, I wonder if and how queer communities are accepted by migrant communities.  The family still hasn't found anyone to buy them a ticket.  It takes most families three days at the most. 

"We are a landscape of all that we have seen." ––Isamu Noguchi A good friend of mine here brought up this quote to our group today and we all shared how working on the border this summer has affected our own "landscapes."  Our boss said that being here has made her reflect on the varying levels to which different people are handed things in life. For the people coming through this shelter, their success is achieved through hard work within a harsh bureaucracy. But there are so many people who never have to worry about working their way through a strict and discriminatory system.   My friend then talked about the ocean, and about how even though water is brought every day to the shore, it also erodes the shore. I liked that analogy. I thought about all the growth and erosion that happens for those once they arrive in the United States, and about all the growth and erosion that I've experienced in the little over two weeks I've been here.  She connected this t...

At one of Annunciation House's shelters the other day, a boy was brought in who was recently released from Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army Base in El Paso that houses thousands of unaccompanied minors. Fort Bliss is the largest of more than a dozen emergency facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has set up to house unaccompanied minors.  The conditions at the mega-site are alarming, according to our director here. There are over 600 children crammed in each tent, they don't get enough to eat, they aren't allowed to call their relatives (except in extreme cases). They barely go outside, and they have limited access to showers, clean clothes, or case managers.  Sometimes I wonder how the high level officials that make big immigration decisions are able to sleep at night.  I'd like to kidnap them, so they could spend months in the Army Base, so they could be removed completely from their lives and families.  The boy who came to our shelter had handc...

A prayer that I loved from Mass today.  RESPONSORIAL LITANY Bishop John Stowe But we also need to listen very carefully to the voice of Jesus who says:  "When I picked and prepared your food, you watched me be handcuffed and put into a van."  "When I grew the plants you will use in your yard, you allowed me to be detained far from where I lived and worked."  "When I served you at table, you didn't know that I went home in fear that I might be shipped along the way or that my spouse wouldn't come home at all."  "When I ran away from an abusive spouse, or protected my kids from gangs on our street, you turned me away from your border."  "When I was five years old and separated from my parents, you accused me of being MS-13 or an actor."  "When I sat next to you in class, you said 'go back where you came from' and insulted my accent, my skin color, my way of being."  "When I was a child and woke up crying for...

One of the sweetest women I think I've ever met came to the shelter today. She was from Haiti, and had big, sad eyes. She was three months pregnant.  Though she was just wearing the grey sweatpants and the simple blue T-shirt that ICE gave her, she was radiant. Over the course of the night, I tried to figure out what it was that made her so striking. I ultimately decided it was her kindness.  She told me that she and her husband left Haiti over a year ago. They somehow managed to get to Chile, and then traveled up through South and Central America to arrive at the border. She said they'd walked so much—through jungles, cities, and over mountains—that all of her toenails had fallen off. She took off her shoe to wriggle her feet at me.  The officials at the detention center must have released her because she is visibly pregnant, but her husband is still being held there. You could see the incredible amount of worry in her eyes when she told me this. She asked when he would ...

As I walked around with the handyman Ed today pointing out leaking pipes and broken faucets in our facility, he talked to me about the history of El Paso.  Ed grew up here, and said that back in the day there were far more day laborers that made the border crossing every day. He used to fish in the Rio Grande and watch as they made their way back and forth over the bridge, yelling down to those that sat on the banks below.  According to him, during the second Bush administration, life in El Paso changed drastically. Petty thievery became common and the border grew more violent. The most unwelcome change for him was the home-grown hatred towards migrants that quickly became the status quo. Fueled by ignorance, some natives of El Paso were hostile towards those who crossed the border.  Living in such a pro-immigration space, I haven't given much thought to the more exclusive and xenophobic demographic of El Paso. I've thought about tragedy and unjustness, about humanity, ab...

A volunteer from Venezuela has been teaching me Spanish songs on the guitar. My favorite is below:  Dios está aquí Tan cierto como el aire que respiro Tan cierto como la mañana se levanta el sol Tan cierto como yo le canto y me puede oír.  God is here As true as the air that I breath As true as the morning brings up the sun As true as I sing and he can her me.  (The volunteers walking along the wall.) 

I met a boy a few days ago whose dad had been shot thirteen times in a city in Mexico and then had been transferred to a hospital in the United States.  The boy managed to cross over the border somehow (maybe with the help of a coyote, maybe by himself) and because unaccompanied minors get passage into the United States under Biden, he was told by his friends and family in Mexico to turn himself into the authorities.  The moment he crossed over, he found a police officer, who took him directly to a detention facility. He was there for four months.  When he spoke about his time there, his face clouded over. He said he had 15 minutes to go outside every day, but was mostly in confinement. He barely ate, and was anxious and afraid.  By the time he was finally sent to Annunciation House, his father had been released from the hospital. His mother and older brother had also successfully crossed and the whole family was reunited. They are staying at our long-term facility u...

Sister Mary Margaret and I sorted shoes for hours today. We joked that our next occupational aspiration should be working at Payless.  "I wouldn't do this type of work if someone payed me a million dollars," Mary Margaret said.  When we found a pair of toddler slippers with two right feet, Mary Margaret started laughing so hard she was crying. She said she was imagining the poor tot that walked out of the clothes dispensary with two left shoes.  Tears rolled down her cheeks.  "I bet his toes are hurting," she laughed.  She told me that this is why it's a good thing she never became a mother.  (Freshly picked flowers bringing warmth to our volunteer room that looks out over the parking lot.)

Below are the notices that I received yesterday while on shift. We get texts periodically so we can know who and what type of guest to expect (I've blanked their names for privacy reasons).  ORR/ICE AGE-OUTS REFUGEE RELEASE The Ft Bliss ORR facility is releasing 3 teens who age out today. They are:  - Guatemalan ______ & Guatemalan ______. They are COVID Negative. Their ETA is this morning between 10:30 & 11:30.  DEL SOL HOSPITAL REFUGEE DISCHARGE Del Sol Hospital is releasing a 34 yr old man from Mexico, _______. He fell off the wall & fractured both ankles. He is non-weight bearing and will arrive with a wheelchair and sliding board to help him transition from the wheelchair to a bed, etc. He is COVID negative. He will arrive by taxi.  CONSORTIUM REFUGEES Today there will be @ 50 Consortium refugees, all COVID tested & negative. Their ETA will be this afternoon.  OFO/YSLETA/POE T42 ACLU REFUGEE RELEASES The YSLETA POE will release a family of 6...

Today we got a call from the wife of a man who had fallen off the wall and broken both of his legs.  He got in last night and has been staying in a private room separate from the dormitory because he is relatively incapacitated and uses a wheelchair to get around. A volunteer from our group was assigned to check in on him periodically and bring him his meals.  We were struggling all day to get him his medication, so I assumed the call was medical-related.  Instead, it was just his wife calling to see how he was doing. I could hear her tell him over the phone that she loved him.  The man was on the bigger side and lay sprawled out on his bed. I tried not to imagine the force of his body falling from 30-40 feet up in the air. Both of his legs were in casts and a small book lay by his side. He seemed anxious.  He asked me how much a phone would cost and if I could buy one for him so he could call his wife. I told him that volunteers weren't allowed to buy things li...

I had a day off today, so three other volunteers and I went down to Juárez for the day.  It's a busy city, with pastel walls of different colors, honking cars, and street vendors. We had tacos and enchiladas for lunch and then walked through the feria. The feria is a maze of small tents selling necklaces, mugs, sombreros, cakes, donuts, belts, chicks, rabbits, and more.  The sun is so strong that it's almost impossible not to stop and buy helado, or a heaping cup of fresh pineapple or mango.  All around the city there are pictures of the famous gay Mexican singer Juan Gabriel, who is from Juárez. Nicknamed "Juanga" or "El Divo de Juárez" he's known throughout Central and South America for his flamboyant style, which broke barriers in Latin American music.  Two of my fellow volunteers (from Bolivia and Columbia) told me that everyone is always listening to him. Sad, happy, anxious or mellow—Gabriel is what is playing.  My friend from Columbia said that al...