Summer in El Paso

A volunteer shared this during reflection today. She's been here for a month and is leaving in a few days.  "One of the more theoretical lessons I've been learning here is about complexity. If you look at the media and think about what the average person knows about immigration and the border, it's very black and white. Learning about all the greyness in between is important—in regards to the immigration system, but also within each person. We're all so complex."  I do agree that when it comes to immigration, people tend to rely on anecdotes and ideology, instead of understanding the whole picture.  Immigration affects legal, political, and economic systems, but it has a lot of other outcomes—the most important being health and well-being.  I think about the little boy who was put in detention for three months and separated from his family. What will be the psychological impact caused by early his life trauma and parental separation?  I wonder where the famili...

Today, we received 29 guests from the El Paso Detention Center. They came on a bus and we had to give them COVID tests.  Out of the 29, 12 were COVID-positive. At the Detention Center, they had been sleeping on the floor with hundreds of people, in very close quarters. Many of them hadn't showered for a full week.  When we told them they'd have to quarantine, some understood but most were angry, telling us that they didn't have a say in whether or not they contracted the virus. I agreed, and it made me want to punch something.  They spent the entire afternoon in our isolation rooms, waiting for our director to finalize hotel reservations.  I keep thinking about one man, who was stretched out on the bed and sweating. He told me he had never felt this sick in his entire life.  OEM hotel rooms—where we send COVID-positive guests—are dingy, with cinder block walls and rusty bathrooms.  The worst part is that the phones don't work (at least in the rooms that I'v...

I went around and asked some volunteers and guests in the shelter this question today: What gets you through the day?  A smattering of answers below...  1. Written words 2. When someone shares a thought, or story, or opinion, or joke, or any vulnerability, or any strength 3. Cooking chickpeas and stews 4. To-do lists 5. Sunny days 6. Hope 7. Saying good morning and sleep well 8. A funny facial expression 9. Sarcasm 10. Engaging with someone's humanity for the sake of truly being with the person 11. Asking good questions When I try to answer the question, I'd like to ask myself: Is this enough to turn my days into my life?  (Post inspired by a poem I read this evening.) 

A fellow volunteer told me she's been having nightmares about the shelter.  The first: She's wearing an ankle bracelet and can't get it off.  The second: She's eating day-old, donated, stale apple fritters out of a grocery bag.  The third: The ceiling is leaking into a sink, and the sink is leaking onto the floor.  The fourth: She's smuggling guests in the back of her car by hiding them under a blanket.  (Note: I debated whether or not this post was appropriate and decided that just as it's important to revel in small moments and reflect on injustice, it's also important to laugh about the ridiculousness of things.) 

I took an 18-year-old Haitian man to ICE to get an ankle bracelet charger today. On the way, he told me his story.  When he was 14-years-old, his mother was killed by people who claimed she was engaged in black magic. He said the people in their village called her a "bruja," or witch.  After the assassination, he moved to Santiago, Chile with his sister. He lived with his aunt and uncle, went to school, learned Spanish, and studied natural sciences. When the riots started in 2019, however, he and his sister decided to travel to the US. They traveled through ten countries in Central and South America.  He told me that there were times he thought he wouldn't make it. He slept on the jungle ground, scrounged for water, and went days without food.  Many in his group died, but by some miracle both he and his sister made it.  His time with border patrol in El Paso was short—just three days—but he told me they barely fed the detainees, gave them thin rolls to sleep on,...

I've been trying to interview ten guests a day for the last ten days that I'm here. 100 interviews in total.  I want to transcribe my conversations for others to read, to understand just how multifaceted and beautiful perspectives here can be.  ...  An excerpt from a 41-year-old Guatemalan woman who I talked to today. She had been traveling for two years to get to the United States.  What advice would you give me?  Be more humble. Have more humility. We need to be simple and humble. If we are, then God will look out for us. Little by little, he will help us.  If you could change the world in one way, what would it be?  I would change the bad human beings—people who have killed, who have violated women. If they could have better hearts and if they could give equally to others and live equally, they would be more human. There should be no assassinations.  Do you think people are generally more good or bad?  There are more bad people. There shou...

I like thinking about the places we send our guests, what they'll do, how they'll live.  When I ask them what they hope for in the future, they almost always say that they want to work and they want to own a house.  A lot of them have had various jobs in their own countries—doctors, nurses, store owners, architects, engineers, etc.—but they tell me they'd be happy with any type of job they can find in the United States. They say that with the language barrier, they don't expect to do much more than clean or farm or work in construction.  Out of curiosity, I went around the office today writing down the names of the cities that we've sent our guests to over the past three days.  In no particular order, they are...  Boynton, FL; Austin, TX; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Inglewood, CA; Sarasota, FL; Sacramento, CA; South Yarmouth, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Seymour, IN; Richmond, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Knoxville, TN; Fall River, MA;  Midwest City, OK; Albuquerque, NM; Atlanta, GA; N...

Today, I met a 21-year-old man from Venezuela. In his country, he was just starting his career as a civil engineer.  He was released from Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, New Mexico. Various detention centers in Texas and New Mexico have been releasing detainees to our shelter to make room for anticipated policy changes to Title-42 at the end of July (T-42 is a COVID-prompted immigration law that passed last March). Over the past week, we've been getting busloads of 50 detainees a day.  They're all men, and most are younger than 23. The majority are Haitians and Venezuelans. When the bus drivers drop them off, they usually say: "We have a busload of 50 bodies here for you."  They don't bother to identify them as people. The Venezuelan man I talked to told me that he had lost two cousins in a governmental raid in 2018—"El Junquito." His cousins were part of a rebel group that fought against corruption within the Bolivarian Government.  Vene...

Specific places and things in the shelter...  The bright yellow mop buckets that are scattered around. Kids like to get inside them and wheel down the ramp in the dorm, squealing.  The large fridge that spilled buckets of water onto the ground one morning before breaking completely. We use a store fridge in a different room now, and we often spill leftover aluminum trays of beans down our shirts while transporting them.  The stacks of dishes that are cleaned in a rush and then piled up on the drying rack in our volunteer room. They stay untouched for days, until it becomes impossible to put another bowl on top without breaking something.  The narrow closet where Salvation Army stores cans of lentils, boxes of instant oatmeal and potato chips, spaghetti, and styrofoam meal boxes. On lucky days, there's sometimes a recently dropped off box of unripe bananas by the door.  The broken shower heads and mildew colonies that form in the stalls of the trailer baños. A br...

I spoke to two girls at the shelter in Juarez today who told me that they left Guatemala because their dad was abusing their mom. Their mom was in the kitchen as they were telling me, so they brought me into a separate room to share the details.  It's been two years since they left, but they didn't want her to have to relive it.  They said that it started with small things that got worse with time. He would come home angry, say and do things he didn't mean, and then apologize in the morning.  When he began making death threats, she packed up and left with the children.  The family has been in Juarez for two years. They've been in and out of detention centers, trying to ask for asylum in the U.S. The oldest girl—just sixteen—told me she was violated several times on their journey and in detention. She said that the boys at school in Juarez asked her to send nudes and threatened to kill her if she didn't. They did the same to her twelve-year-old sister.  She was s...

I've been thinking recently about how it's almost equally interesting to document the people that work at the shelter as those that pass through it.  So today, I visited the home of the young couple who give out vaccines—Megan and Jaime. They live on an alpaca farm a few minutes away. We walked around, through fields of horses, goats, ducks, chickens, dogs, alpacas, and llamas.  They met when Jaime was 19 and Megan was 18. He proposed to her two weeks later during the intermission of a concert. She said yes. They've been married for ten years.  I was blown away by their story. They live at the house and farm where Megan grew up with her parents. She told me her great-grandpa bought the property in the 1930s when the surrounding area was farmland, but now it's a regular suburban neighborhood in El Paso.  It's a beautifully-tended farm. There are meandering paths and gates separating the animals. Wild peacocks roam around and ducks swim around in the little irrigation...

I spoke to a 31-year-old woman today from El Salvador. She told me that I asked questions like a journalist, and that she herself had dreams of being a journalist when she was young. She talked openly about the violence and gangs in El Salvador. She and her husband are going to Oregon with their two daughters, where she hopes they'll be able to avoid a life of danger. The family has been traveling for two years.  +++ I asked her how she'll take her migrant experience into her life, and she said it's taught her how to live. She told me she learned how to get along with people, how to help and be helped in return, and how to have hope.  When the four entered Guatemala, they were immediately robbed. They had no place to stay and no food, so they slept on the street. Their youngest daughter had just turned one. They managed to hitchhike and cross into Chiapas, Mexico where a kind man bought them dinner—chicken, beans, and soda. The woman told me he was a fellow migrant.  It w...

My shift coordinator on Wednesday was an ex-Border Patrol agent who now volunteers at our shelter. He's from El Paso.  He entered at age 30, and was with Border Patrol for 26 years. Through this work, he was involved in high-risk operations in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and El Salvador. He then spent two years at the headquarters in D.C., three years in Del Rio, and five years in Puerto Rico. He finished his career as the chief of one of the 21 sectors along the border.  "The tactical unit was great because I really got to travel all around the world," he said. "I liked working in South and Central America. It was fantastic. I spent a while in El Salvador and worked on my Spanish and my salsa dancing."  Now that he's back in El Paso, he says that he doesn't miss traveling. He told me that one year, he was on the road for 320 days.  It's bizarre to be working with someone who works for the very organization that we so fundamentally take issue with her...

Today during shift, I asked all of the volunteers to describe Casa del Refugiado in a sentence. This is what they came up with:  "Nothing here works. Only the people work." - Sarah (Indiana)  "It doesn't check any boxes for me—no windows, no heating, no air, no oven, no real beds for guests—and yet it's the most welcoming building I've ever been in." - Bella (Georgia)  "Donde no hay amor, pon amor, y sacarás amor."   "Where there is no love, give love, and you will find love."   - Abi (Kentucky)  "When you work here, it feels like you're simultaneously building an airplane and flying it."  - Grace (New York) "It's where we welcome the stranger."  - Matt (Vermont) " It feels like both a starting point and an ending point."  -David (New York)  "Restoración de la dignidad para todos, incluyendo nosotros."  "Restoration of dignity for everyone, including ourselves." -  Regina (Cali...

Sister Joannes Klas, age 86, has been helping migrants in Central America since 1982.  Speaking with her today, I thought about all the lives I've seen pass through the shelter since I've been here—all the pain I've witnessed. I asked her how she's been able to stick with it for so many years.  "I think you have to learn not to be afraid. That's why I say that security is an allusion. You almost have to put everything in a box and try not to think too hard about it," she said.  Originally from Belgium, Wisconsin, Klas was one of 11 children. She grew up going to the library and reading from The Lives of Saints, and was so inspired these stories that at age 15 she knew she wanted to enter the convent. At age 18, she was received into the community of the School Sisters of St Francis, Milwaukee.  She was drawn to this particular group of sisters because they worked internationally, which was something she had always dreamed about.  " You could enter th...

Two undocumented women who have been here for almost a month left this afternoon. We celebrated by making Honduran Sopa de mariscos  for lunch on the hot plates in the room that serves as our kitchen. Both volunteers and guests came to eat and celebrate.  The two women aren't related but found each other while riding trains through Mexico. One of the women saved the other's life by moving her out of the way of a train after her boyfriend somehow pushed her onto the track.  They've only known each other for a few months, but they both told me it feels like a lifetime.  Because of their citizenship status, it took them longer to make travel arrangements than normal guests. We were able to develop more of a relationship with them as a result—walking, talking, praying, and cleaning the shelter together.  Both women are sensitive, strong, and bring a remarkable energy to the rooms they enter. They feel like stars in the sky—the things in their life are dark and diffi...

A letter of civil disobedience that was shared in our prayer reflection today, written in April of 2019. It was included with a donation to Annunciation House.  Department of the Treasury IRS, P.O. Box 802501 Cincinnati, OH 45280-2501 Dear People of the IRS, We have an escalating situation in our country with a government almost fully controlled by the big finance and military industries, and an administration promoting fear and hatred of minorities and the refugees of our wars. We therefore cannot morally pay the full amount of our tax due, and will instead give $4000, to be divided amongst a number of civic organizations that work to solve some of the serious problems mentioned above. Having just returned from weeks volunteering in El Paso at non-profit centers welcoming refugees increases our faith that we need to change how our nation spends its tax dollars. Yet democracy has been gutted by our wealthy special interests. We can't wait any longer.  We've had a windfall, and...

A woman came to the office today with extreme pressure in her chest. She was three months and five days pregnant.  We took her blood pressure and it was slightly concerning, so we called the ER. Paramedics came and took her to the hospital.  A few hours later, I got a teary call from her that she needed to be picked up immediately. The volunteer who was sent to meet her found out that though she was doing well now, she had lost her baby.  For hours after I received the news, I tried to wrap my head around the deep pain of going through a miscarriage compounded by the loneliness and fear of being in such an unknown and new place. She came here alone.  The worst part of the story for me is the fact that the hospital gave her medicine to speed up the miscarriage but released her before she passed the pregnancy tissue. I try not to believe that it was because of her lack of citizenship or her inability to speak English.  We have volunteers who are sleeping on cots n...

A fellow volunteer told me she often wonders how our guests can find such a deep well of kindness after having been through so much. She pointed to two examples.  - The first, when a man was having concerning heart palpitations at three in the morning and a woman on a cot nearby noticed, got up, and offered to sleep next to him in case he needed anything.  - The second, when after we served watermelon to our guests for lunch, a man asked us if he could cut more watermelon for the roofers (who were here to fix the gaping holes that caused our flood a few days ago).  Each of these acts are small, but they made me reflect on how our guests' journeys wouldn't have been possible without the small acts of kindness they received along the way. I think as a result, those that make it here are ready to dispel kindness in whatever ways they can.  I asked an older guest tonight if he thinks humans are inherently good or bad. He immediately said that the people who received him ...

In the office today, I found a record of the fallen the shelter has taken this year. I copied down five months, from October to February.  2/25/21- Dominican Republic - 2 broken wrists 2/22/21 - Mexico - splinted, returning to Juarez for surgery 2/17/21 - Guatemala - broken L femur, tibia, and heel 2/16/21 - Guatemala - injuries not recorded 2/9/21 - Brazil - spine injury, laceration on head 1/21/21 - El Salvador - broken tibia and femur, on crutches 1/24/21 - Ecuador - broken right tibia and ankle 1/19/21 - Guatemala - broken right foot 1/17/21 - Ecuador - injuries not recorded 1/13/21 - Guatemala - injured hip, right leg, used cast 1/9/21 - Ecuador - spinal fracture, operation on knee, 13 weeks pregnant 1/5/21 - Ecuador - spinal fracture, non-weight-bearing 12/31/20 - Honduras - operation on spine and left foot, used back brace 12/31/20 - Guatemala - left ankle fracture, uses walker 12/24/20 - Honduras - injured arm and foot, left leg non-weight-bearing 12/23/20 - Guatemala - inj...

We received news on Monday that our handyman, Ed, had fallen through the roof.  He had climbed onto the indoor ceiling over the laundry room and somehow ended up on the ground 30 feet below. He fractured his skull as well as several bones in his face.  For the past few days, he was in the ICU. Today we found out that he won't need brain surgery but will need to stay in the hospital for weeks/months for intensive therapy.  It's been a heavy few days at the shelter. We've been trying to support those who were on shift at the time and had to deal with calling the hospital and hauling his fractured body out to the ambulance and we've been trying to grapple with the reality that Ed may never be the same again.  Mostly, however, we've been asking ourselves why bad things happen to good people.  Ed was an unpaid volunteer, but he came to the shelter for hours each day to fix broken showers, install swamp coolers, and patch leaking pipes. He was almost always cracking a...

Home  by Warsan Shire no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.  you only run for the border  when you see the whole city running as well.  your neighbors running faster than you, the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body,  you only leave home when home won't let you stay. no one would leave home unless home chased you, fire under your feet, hot blood in your belly.  it's not something you ever thought about doing, and so when you did -  you carried the anthem under your breath,  waiting until the airport toilet to tear up the passport and swallow,  each mouthful of paper making it clear that  you would not be going back.  you have to understand,  no one puts their children in a boat  unless the water is safer than the land.  who would choose to spend days and nights in the stomach of a truck unless the miles travelled  mean...

Every day on the hour (starting at 8 am), one of my jobs here is to bring large groups of people out to the bus that takes them to the airport. I wrote down my 10 am group.  - A family of four from Honduras on their way to Minnesota. The mom told me they were going to be reunited with her mom, who she hasn't seen in 25 years. She said she's excited for the cold weather there because heat gives her a rash.  - Another family of four from El Salvador on their way to Los Angeles. They were also going to be reunited with the father's mother, who he hasn't seen in 21 years. I asked how he was feeling and he said that he would miss his brother, who still lives in El Salvador. He explained that they were very close, that he couldn't imagine life without him.  - A family of three from Mexico on their way to San Francisco. They were going to be reunited with the father's brother, who he hasn't seen in three years. They had a little daughter who loved the bags of pista...

Every weeknight, two volunteers come from Nexus Health Solutions, LLC to offer the Johnson and Johnson to our guests.  We walk through the dorm announcing their arrival and giving people the option to accept or refuse the vaccine.  Jaime and Megan Arriola run the clinic/center in El Paso. They explained to me that they mostly serve the working poor/migrant community here. During the beginning of the pandemic they offered free testing to residents and now they administer vaccines at all three of our shelters.  They said that they generally find migrant communities to be more responsive and open to getting the vaccine than most of the Americans they work with.  Many of our guests come when they hear the announcement, knowing that it may heighten their chances of finding and securing employment. They are always so grateful.  It's ironic to me that our guests, many of whom have been confronted with blatant discrimination and violence from ICE officials, are quicker ...

A fellow volunteer told me about a moment she had with two undocumented women tonight where they sat and prayed together. She said that the women thanked her and then started crying.  They were eating with another family, and the mother at the table started crying too.  "I knew that if I came to a place like this, I wouldn't be sure if I would be able to do anything else again," she told me. "I don't want people to be in that situation where the smallest kindnesses bring them to tears. It breaks my heart." It doesn't feel healthy to be angry or desperate, but it's hard not to be.  "They weren't just saying thank you," she said.  She's right—they're in a type of trouble that we are not and will not ever be in. The inequality is sometimes too much to bear. It's just plain sad.  "When we're praying, we should be on an equal plane with God, but it doesn't seem like it. It seems like they need in a way that I can...