BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – They swam, they rafted, they waded, they walked through the desert. They got caught. That’s the short, surface version of the stories of these 45 Central American immigrants. Their cases were all heard on the same morning this fall before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald G. Morgan in a federal courtroom in Brownsville, Texas. This is a story of process, not of the histories and hopes and dreams of these people – 38 men and 7 women – or the economic and political forces that drove them north, or the fierce political debate in the United States over what immigration policy is and ought to be. There are spaces for that. This day, in this formal room with the arched ceiling and long wooden benches, it was a time for process: for each of the 45 defendants to stand, shackled, to plead guilty, to take the next step towards deportation and being sent back home. These people are not seeking political asylum – not claiming to immigration authorities that they face … [Read more...]

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – The asylum-seekers show up at the Brownsville bus station one after another, just released from detention, moving forward into the unknown. Here are two of their stories, told through a Spanish translator, Belinda Bradford, as they waited at the Good Neighbor Settlement House for their buses to depart that night. The Honduran. He left because of political unrest. “A lot of people don’t have choices for education or for work,” said the tall 24-year old with wavy sideburns. “You’re always told or threatened what to do. It’s put a lot of people at risk.” Bradford said other clients have said similar things. The authorities allow many to attend only primary school, “then they take you out of school and tell you where to work.” This man said he traveled through Mexico in the back of a trailer, with “no water, no food, for three days straight. In the heat. They were packed in like sardines.” At the border, he crossed under the bridge with a group of five … [Read more...]

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – They walked single file into the Brownsville Greyhound station before the sun had risen in the sky, dropped off by immigration authorities from the Port Isabel Detention Center. A Somalian was on his way to meet a cousin in Everett, Washington – although it took volunteer Andrea Rudnik close to two hours and phone call after phone call to sort out his bus ticket. A man from Eretria, who’d been held in detention for three months, was now heading to Oakland, California, to meet his brother. He would be riding buses for dozens of hours, with stops in San Antonio, El Paso, Los Angeles and finally Oakland. All are in the United States legally, having initiated the process of applying for asylum, and most are on their way to stay temporarily with friends or family. Down the road, some may be given permission to stay permanently, and others refused that and deported. For the time being, they had just been released from detention, had no money or food, and … [Read more...]

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – These are the hands and feet of mercy. Nearly every morning at 6 a.m., a cluster of volunteers gathers at the Greyhound bus station in Brownsville, Texas, clipboards in hand, ready to help asylum-seekers who immigration authorities have just released from detention get their bus tickets and find their way to the next stop. Most of the immigrants don’t speak English. They are exhausted and apprehensive about what will come next, grateful for a friendly face and a Spanish speaker who can help guide them. As the light rises in the sky, two of the volunteers, Sergio Cordova and Michael Benavides, dash off to their jobs as special education administrators for the local school district. These partners work all day and, as dusk falls, return again to the bus station night after night – driven by the knowledge that at the city’s two border bridges just blocks away, asylum seekers have lined up on the Mexican side, waiting for entry, exposed to the elements, … [Read more...]

SAN BENITO, TEXAS – She’s a native of Zimbabwe, and she arrived in the United States last February on a flight from Dublin. She’d flown from Africa to Ireland – fleeing violence after an attack, trying to reach some contacts there, but was but back on the plane when the authorities found she didn’t have a passport. The flight’s next stop: Los Angeles. She’s 34 years old, with a month-old baby, both of them now living at the La Posada Providencia shelter in San Benito, Texas.  When she fled, she left behind two other children: a 14-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter, who are now with her mother.  She left suddenly, because “it was not safe to stay.” When she landed in California, she was put in a detention center for two months. “Being in a new country, it’s like prison,” said the woman, who could not give her name out of concern for her safety, but was using the name Shalom.  “It was not easy. Cold. Eating the same food every day, and discovering I was pregnant” – the … [Read more...]

SAN BENITO, TEXAS – The caravan is coming: as many as 7,000 Central American migrants, fleeing violence and corruption in their homelands, bearing down on the U.S.-Mexico border. Remember: these aren’t just numbers; these are people – mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, each one someone’s beloved child. This is, at heart, an achingly human story.   And those who’ve already arrived – the wave of asylum-seekers who crossed the border just ahead of the caravan – give glimpses into the humanitarian and policy challenges ahead. The immigrants’ stories reveal the pain, the hope, and the political reality that after all the relentless miles, after the exhaustion and fear and degradation they have endured, their petitions for asylum may well be denied and they will be deported. These are men, women and children who have turned themselves in to the Border Patrol or immigration authorities – some on the border bridges, some after swimming across the Rio Grande, … [Read more...]