¿Cómo puedo ayudarte?
Hi! Sorry this is late; I wanted to do some thinking before putting pen to paper. I came out of this experience in December being physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and with an insurmountable amount of respect for those that do this every day of the year.
All of your donations have been an immense help; rest assured your donations went directly to those who needed it most. At the same time, I also felt like there’s so much to be done at the border and so much we couldn’t get to, and for that reason I felt like the wrong person to tell our story. However, I did hold the $5k+ donations in my bank account at one point, so I felt compelled to let you know where that went (thank you for helping us exceed our goal!). In the spirit of transparency, our full budget is at the end of the article.
We mainly volunteered with three organizations and each had their own way of giving back.
Catholic Charities Respite Center
On December 16th, a jolly guy by the name of César greeted us at the door. The 9 of us, young adults that were predominantly Asian, looked out of place amidst the sea of young Central American families. He gave us a tour of the facilities — below are some of my observations.
It was hard not to notice the influx of families that just came in. A few hundred asylum seekers arrive daily from ICE custody in the afternoon. They filed in family by family looking exhausted, yet hopeful. One of the volunteers was walking around with a box of shoelaces in every color. Some of them had cut up the thin foil blankets that they were given in detention to replace the shoelaces and belts that ICE had taken — the blankets weren’t really good at keeping warm inside the windowless 60 degree icebox anyways.
On the right, we noticed asylum seekers sitting, waiting to use landline phones. They were waiting to call either their home or their sponsors in the U.S. Each of them had a sponsor as it was one of the conditions of their release to the respite center. Whoever was on the other side of the line would finance their plane or bus ticket to take them to their final destination. Asylum seekers arrived to this country with almost nothing, let alone the funds to buy several few-hundred dollar bus tickets.
When volunteering at the respite center, a lot of our time was spent organizing and handing out clothing to the families. Clothing was divided into three rooms: men’s, women’s, and children’s. Somehow, we usually ended up working with men’s clothing, and that room became our group’s base at the respite center.
Some of us knew Spanish and some of us didn’t, but by the end of the second day, each one of us was able to facilitate a simple but to the point conversation with the men looking for clothing. It sounded something like this:
Volunteer: Hola! ¿Como puedo ayudarte?
Man: Necesito ropa.
V: ¿Camiseta? *holds up shirt* ¿Pantalones? *hold up pants* ¿Boxers? *holds up boxers* ¿Calcetines? *holds up socks*
M: Pantalones tan grande.
V: Lo siento, no hay más.
While it wasn’t a super in depth conversation, it got the job done and they always walked out with a fresh change of clothes.
In addition to interacting with the asylum seekers, we also did a lot of organizational work with the clothes. A majority of the donations we received ranged from Large to XXXLarge — everything really is bigger in Texas. Unfortunately for us, many of the asylum seekers were smaller, with the men being around 5’7 and 140 pounds. On top of that, they had an affinity for tighter clothing. We often ran out of smaller sizes of everything and ended up having to buy a lot of boxers.
Other things we did included making snack bags, doing Walmart runs, and helping out at the health clinic. Even though we may have looked out of place, we were never treated differently. The asylum seekers were all comfortable interacting with us and other volunteers trusted us with important tasks. For some asylum seekers, it was their first time seeing Asian people in real life — so naturally we got some innocuous “racist” remarks, but I found them to be hilariously refreshing. We laughed together, learned about each other’s cultures, and put trust in one another. The world felt a lot smaller right then and there.
Unfortunately, since our time volunteering there, the respite center has been shut down due to complaints from local neighbors. While the search for a new space is going well, the open courtyards and ample storage space of the original location will be missed.
McAllen Bus Station
Spanish speakers would go to the McAllen bus station to help out the Angry Tias and Abuelas (note that their name comes from their frustrations with the current government, not the asylum seekers). Here is the (rough outline of the) protocol volunteers followed when helping out asylum seekers that were taking the Greyhound.
- Look at the schedule on the 5–10 page bus ticket.
- Draw their route on a map of the U.S.
- Ensure that they have enough food for the journey. If not, give them some cash for food.
- Ask about their first ICE appointment. Ensure that the location of the appointment is near their final destination. They must attend the appointment in order to seek asylum.
- Hand them phone numbers for legal services and lawyers.
- Let them know that an ICE officer will be checking their immigration forms.
- Ask them if they have any more questions before sending them off on the bus.
At the train station, there is a vending machine, convenience store and Subway. Sometimes, I took the children there to buy snacks or drinks for the trip. The most popular item by far was Coca-Cola, but one kid even picked out a vanilla protein shake.
ICE used to drop asylum seekers off at the bus station directly, rather than the respite center. The bus station was madness: the volunteers were simply not able to attend to the hundreds of families that were dropped off before their bus departed. The volunteers were overwhelmed and families were not receiving the help that they needed. Fortunately, ICE now drops off the families at the respite center, where they can recharge and gather themselves for their trip.
As the asylum seekers are waiting for their bus, I try to make small talk and ask about their stories. Many of them have travelled for over a month from their hometowns and have stories to tell. Here are some of the stories that families have shared with me.
- I spoke with a single mother and her 7 year old daughter. Their trip to Indianapolis had 3 transfers with 2 hour layovers at dawn. Most bus stations are not open 24/7 so the family would have to wait in the cold. The mother told me that her husband was their sponsor, and that he had been waiting for them for 5 years. The little girl said that even though she hadn’t seen her father since she was 2 years old, that she remembers him clearly. Despite having already travelled for weeks, the girl still had excitement in her eyes that late December day. Her first Christmas snowfall would be with her reunited family. The mother held my hand and said ‘Dios te bendiga,’ which means ‘God bless you.’
- I had been assisting a woman traveling alone for 3 minutes when I realized that she wasn’t understanding what I was saying. She barely spoke any Spanish and only knew how to speak her native Mayan tongue. As she was traveling alone, I was worried if she would be able to make it to her destination. I lent her my phone, and she knew right away to call her Spanish-speaking brother that was waiting for her on the east coast. I talked to her brother who later translated for her. I remembered that there was another family that was traveling most of the same route as her. The father agreed to guide the woman throughout the parts of their journey that overlapped — that made me and the brother feel much more relieved about the situation. The asylum seekers I met are all looking out for each other, and keeping everyone’s best interests at heart. They all share a special bond in entering the U.S. at the same port, and can empathize with the difficulty of their journeys and the road to citizenship ahead.
- After explaining the journey ahead to a father, I tried made small talk with his older son and younger daughter. The son proved harder to talk to but the girl was very lively and seemed excited to talk to me. The ends of her out-of-place bright purple shoelaces tangled by her ankles. With shoelaces that long, she would trip in no time if they were untied. She said she didn’t know how to tie her shoes, so I took the right sneaker and showed her step by step how to do it. She replicated the bow perfectly on the left side. With more time to kill, I decided to give her a French braid. This time, I asked the father if he knew how to braid. I said that the underlying concept was very simple: you take three sections of hair and alternate which section goes in the middle. We repeated “al centro, al centro, al centro,” which means to the middle, as we went down the braid together. I hope he teaches his son how to braid hair too.
Note: The travelers above were using Greyhound; there were two other less complicated options: Tornado and Omni. Tornado bus tickets were easier to read, with fewer layovers and cheaper prices. Omni picked up families straight from the respite center, thus avoiding all of the procedures at the bus station.
Crossing the Rio Grande
Brownsville is another border city, about an hour away from McAllen. It hosts the U.S. side of the Old Bridge and New Bridge that go across the Rio Grande into Matamoros, Mexico.
A group of us would drive down to help out Sergio, Gabby, and Michael — three local residents who poured their heart and soul into welcoming asylum seekers. Their daily social media posts are what remind me how much help is needed and what it means to serve selflessly. Beyond that, they have all welcomed homeless asylum seekers in their own homes and advocated for their residency.
Brownsville also had their own bus station, but we mainly focused our efforts on the other side of the border. At Here Everything’s Better, a classic Texan grocery store, we would spend roughly $100 to feed 80 people. Sergio and Michael let us into their home (with 8 adorable foster dogs) so that we could use their kitchen to prep meals for asylum seekers waiting on the bridge. We made hot meals reminiscent of their native cuisine and put them in wagons to wheel across the border. Some dishes we cooked include coconut flan, yuca pancakes, and chicken fajitas.
Getting to Mexico was as simple as inserting four quarters in the turn style and walking across. It was about a 10 minute walk to get to where the asylum seekers were staying with little security measures on the way. In addition to the warm dinner, we also brought over miscellaneous supplies that they needed. Those that crossed more regularly developed friendships with those waiting at the border, and often brought special supplies, such as baby formula, antibiotics, and toys.
I had a lot the expectations built up for what I’d see on the bridge, but a lot of them turned out to be false. I expected a queue of people waiting their turn, instead there were only around 40 people on each bridge. I later found out that most people that were waiting to cross were turned away, and forced to stay in Mexico until they become “higher priority.” Priority was an ambiguous measurement determined by a combination of the traveller(s)’ age, health, and reason for seeking asylum.
Furthermore, there was no indoor shelter on the bridge, only a tarp above concrete. Previous volunteers had brought over makeshift beds and blankets, but it was barely enough to keep warm outside on winter nights. Despite the conditions, people seemed optimistic and happy to be there.
It was a melting pot of cultures. While the people were predominantly El Salvadorian, Guatemalan, and Honduran, there were also Cubans, Ghanaians, and Nigerians. Some asylum seekers spoke perfect English but most spoke to us Spanish. All of them had learned “thank you,” and they said it when we served them dinner.
One family I spoke to fled from Cuba. The daughter was practicing law and the father had his own business. Despite holding relatively high ranking jobs, their family was barely able to scrape by with their combined income. Here is a rough translation of their story:
“Back in my country, a smartphone cost $50. As a lawyer, I make $20 a month; so to afford a smartphone like this, I’d have to save up for months and starve to make ends meet. Even with this method of communication, censorship blocks me from the outside world.
The government here is so corrupt and launders so much that not even a lawyer can make a living. One would think that Cuba’s economy would be growing from all the rise in tourism, but all of the revenue from tourism goes straight to the government’s pockets — leaving citizens with nothing. Tourists don’t realize the struggles the native people go through when they visit. Cubans with American relatives are a little better off as they get sent money.
It got to a point where we couldn’t afford to stay anymore. We paid a hefty fee to escape the country and come to the Mexico border in search for a better life. We will be staying in a church when we cross, hoping that God can give our lives a new direction”
The bridge closed at 8:00 PM so I was unable to hear more stories, but I don’t forget that behind each one of these hopeful faces lies a backstory that they have sacrificed so much to escape.
Thank you to all those that contributed to the cause and for reading about our experience. The situation at the border won’t be getting any better with our current government, but here’s a reminder that the little things we can do for each other as human beings still matter. Dios te bendiga.
Fundraising Budget:
More ways to donate can be found at the end of our previous article. Thanks for reading!
