Reflections on Three Weeks at the Border
March 19th 2020
Street vendors at the pedestrian border crossing in Tijuana — with the US-Mexico barrier at their backs (Toksave)
By Lee Goodman
I recently spent three weeks with volunteers from all over the country
who have been taking turns holding a daily vigil at the border crossing
in Brownsville, Texas. On the other side of a bridge over the Rio
Grande, about 2,000 people are trapped in Matamoros, Mexico, where they
live in camping tents in a makeshift unofficial refugee encampment that
exists with almost no support from either the U.S. or Mexican
government. They have mostly come from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Cuba, and Venezuela in hopes of getting asylum in the United States. The
volunteers are there to observe and report on the impact that U.S.
immigration policies are having on people who are fleeing violence,
oppression, and intolerable conditions in their home countries. We call
our action witnessing, and we describe it as the subversive act of
seeing.
Most days, all we could see of the deportees who were being forced onto
planes bound for Central America was their feet shuffling in chains. But
occasionally the buses and fuel trucks that were parked in a manner to
obstruct our view were not carefully aligned, and we got a clear view of
the adults and children. Sometimes the shades on the plane were not
closed, and we could see faces looking out at their last view of our
country.
On any day, we could go across the border into the camp where children
would be playing with sticks and balls just like children everywhere.
Parents would be sweeping the dirt outside their tents and tidying up.
Some people would be cooking on wood stoves they had built out of mud or
tubs from old washing machines. People would be passing the time.
When we crossed back into the United States, there were never more than
three people in line ahead of us waiting to present U.S. passports.
People from Mexico who have permits to cross every day in order to work
or go to school, have to wait for hours in their own line. We regularly
saw paramedics tending to people who succumbed to the heat while
waiting.
If we went into the tent courts, we could watch as judges who were miles
away conducted hearings via closed circuit television. They were so
polite we could almost believe that the asylum seekers had a reasonable
chance of winning their cases. But they didn't. Almost no one ever gets
asylum in these courts, by design.
It is generally thought that people from Cuba and Venezuela have an
easier time getting asylum than people from Honduras, El Salvador, or
Guatemala. The reason doesn't seem to be that Cubans and Venezuelans are
at greater risk and therefore more deserving of asylum. Rather, it seems
that our international politics and relationships dictate how lenient we
are with people trying to flee their countries. The Cubans and
Venezuelans also seem to be more likely to have enough money to hire
lawyers, which makes a huge difference.
Lawyers tell us that detainees are being moved inland from American
detention facilities that are near the border, presumably so that there
will be room to detain more people near the border. This might happen if
Mexico decides not to continue to allow the U.S. to warehouse immigrants
there, if Central American countries stop letting us dump people there,
or if the coronavirus keeps the detention camps in Mexico from being
viable.
There is almost no medical care of any sort in the camps and little in
the surrounding communities, so an outbreak of COVID-19 could be
catastrophic. The organization that has been bringing in volunteers from
around the country to feed and otherwise help the refugees has asked
people who are not locals not to come anymore as a precaution against
their carrying the virus into the camps. There is no indication that
our government would relax its policies and let stricken people come
across in order to be treated in U.S. hospitals. The situation is grim.
I learned a great deal during my stay on the border. Along with other
volunteers, we were able to help people who came to witness how our
country's policies are being implemented and how they are affecting
people. We also helped reporters understand what they had come to
investigate. We made sure immigration officials knew we were watching.
We supported local relief and advocacy efforts. And now I am home, ready
to do what I can to keep this issue in the public's awareness.
Because of the coronavirus situation, it is unclear what form our
witnessing will take in the coming days and weeks, but we will find a
way to move forward together, and we will prevail. Trump's walls will
come down, his policies will be undone, and in unity, people will
triumph over cruel policies that seek to keep them divided.
Lee Goodman is a volunteer with Peaceful Communities,
www.facebook.com/PeacefulCommunities/ which is working with Witness At
the Border, www.facebook.com/groups/339957239906299/ a group that has
stood witness outside the now-closed immigrant children's detention
centers in Tornillo, Texas, Carrizo Springs, Texas, and Homestead,
Florida and is now confronting the Remain in Mexico program.