I am writing this a month after arriving home from a month in Agua Prieta as a volunteer accompanying migrants as they sought asylum in the U.S. My thoughts and reflections are to some degree colored by the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the migrants’ journey and their hopes of receiving asylum.
My safety is secure and no one is threatening my existence here in North Carolina. How different are the lives of the asylum seekers I met in Agua Prieta. They are courageous people, hopeful for new beginnings for themselves and their children. The children I met were joyful, playful, imaginative, bright, engaging and secure in their parents’ care. Adults never complained, rarely asked for things, helped each other out and laughed, and yet I was always aware of the lack of control they had over some aspects of their own lives. Their strength, courage and faith was always evident as they were eager to review the map hung on the wall at the center and discover the distance from Agua Prieta to their planned destinations in the U.S., be it California, Utah, Colorado, Texas or elsewhere. Some opened up as they drew with the crayons and markers provided at the CRM (Centro de Recursos para Migrantes). One drawing by a father clearly communicated his sorrow and loss; he and his family had lost their land, house and farming equipment to "mafia" who surrounded his family's land with their loaded rifles. Other drawings were of flowers, the journey through the desert and gratitude for CAME (Centro de Atención al Migrante “Exodus”), its staff, and the bonds and friendships made there.
My role focused on providing secure travel, up to three times a day, for the two and a half blocks from where the migrants slept just outside the entrance to the U.S. to the CRM. Although personally I never felt unsafe due to my privileged status, I took to heart the reports we heard from those living in Agua Prieta and Douglas, and we learned to scan for various potential threats to the migrating individuals. Rainy days that flooded the streets, and obviously impinged on the comfort of the folks staying under tarps outside the entrance to the U.S., necessitated altering the routine of the three daily trips to the CRM.
Also, I felt my presence provided me an opportunity to do my best to show respect and kindness to the individuals on their uncertain, often treacherous journeys. At times, I felt giving people the space to have as much personal agency as the situation availed was the right thing to do. Other times, providing activities, engaging with the children and organizing the children's play space to make it more inviting suited the moment. It was a gift and a pleasure to have had time to spend with these individuals.
I met many individuals in Agua Prieta, Sonora and Douglas, Arizona, who have dedicated their lives to serve in the Borderlands.
The daily trips to the tents outside the border entrance and through the streets in the neighborhood where we stayed gave us opportunities to see and at times interact with the active, colorful life of the Agua Prieta streets. We saw determined, creative, often struggling, individuals working hard for their daily survival. There were vendors selling anything from colorful cotton candy to children's musical instruments to statuettes of pigs, cherubic-looking children, Grecian like figurines, crucifixes and other religious images. Some vendors were in wheelchairs, another was accompanied by their dog holding a cup in his mouth with the promise of filling it for its master. There was the young Tarahumara mother with her three-month-old and toddler clothed in beautifully adorned indigenous dress, also hoping to fill her basket with pesos to provide for herself and her children. There were drug deals we witnessed from a car parked along the street as we walked home from the CRM and the kind young merchant at the neighborhood tienda where we bought our staples. These experiences and interactions gave me much to think and pray about and many questions to which I have yet to find answers.
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