The Caravan’s Situation in Tijuana
What my first hand experience in refugee aid taught me.
In the past few weeks thousands of refugees from Central America (mostly Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) are in route and have arrived to Tijuana. One of their goals is to gain entry into the United States for a better life. When one of the first large groups of refugees and asylum seekers arrived in Tijuana, they were met with massive protests against their existence in Tijuana. Appalled at the protests, last month I decided to do something to help aid the refugees and asylum seekers. I started a fundraiser in Los Angeles and headed down to Mexico shortly after. Being one of the first responders on the scene, I saw an extreme disorganization, a small amount of overwhelmed NGO workers, and hundreds of refugees without proper shelter. The people were sleeping in trash bag hammocks, tents made out of blankets held up by sticks, and people densely placed together. I will never forget seeing the amount of suffering in that camp last month, but the situation has changed since then. First off, there’s less media attention than there was last time. This made a difference in the ways that the refugee camps were protected vs. how they are now. Also refugees have been placed in new locations by the Mexican government, new laws were enacted in The United States and were then challenged by federal judges. The aid has drastically changed in Tijuana since my first time in the Benito Juarez refugee camp.
The aid trip for December 19, 2018 consisted of organizing three parts. The plan was to distribute legal documentation on how to enter the United States as a refugee and asylum seeker, to give clothes, and to provide them with food and clean water. I worked with an immigration lawyer to make copies of the legal documents. Once they were made, I contacted someone to help me translate the documents into Spanish and I printed 2,247 copies of these documents. To my surprise, people donated more than I expected for one day’s worth of aid. The small fundraiser for the day raised over $550, 11 full bags of clothes, 7 blankets, 4 suit cases, 3 bags of shoes, 1 huge box of baby food, and a tent meant for a family. With all of these supplies in mind, I had to do more research on how the supplies could reach the maximum amount of people.
I contacted a few NGO’s with more experience in this field than me and their advice had multiple patterns that I took with me. Advice consisted of being mindful over the concept of equity vs equality of aid. Would it be better to give the most amount of supplies to those in need of immediate aid or distributing most of the supplies equally between them all which in turn affects more people? I deeply thought this question about for many days before my departure. Another idea that had to be processed was “Should we visit the official refugee camps, or the refugees on the street outside of the camp that haven’t been accepted in yet?” This was another question that was thought about for multiple days, and my small team of aid workers and I picked the refugees that were in unofficial camps instead.
When we arrived in Tijuana, we went straight to the organization “Enclave Caracol”. This organization has transformed as the top organization dealing with the refugee crisis in the city. When we arrived, there was a meeting being held at Enclave Caracol between different organizations on how to best help the refugees and asylum seekers for the next day. The room was split in half, the native Spanish speakers on one half, and the English speakers on the other. Organizations from Los Angeles, San Diego, and Tijuana were working together and translating each other’s plans and ideas. This was a great thing to see since the last visit to Enclave Caracol. We came to restock some of their medication cabinets and food supplies, which were running low. Something that is both a positive and a negative sign. The positive aspect is that supplies are getting out to the refugees — it shows that the organization is working hard each day to distribute the goods. The negative sign is that one organization alone cannot keep replenishing their supplies daily to help a refugee crisis of so many thousands of people.
On our last visit to Enclave Caracol, the refugee crisis was brand new and media attention was loud. The organization was packed with refugees, but only three people were working at the organization that night. No one in Tijuana expected this big of a crisis to happen. People donated tons of materials to Enclave Caracol, which permitted them to have a big medical office and huge amounts of food. Things have changed since that last visit; On this visit, I noticed that food and medical supplies were in extreme short supply while the organization had more clothes to give out than it could handle. On the flip side, the room was packed with NGO’s discussing aid. What organizations like Enclave Caracol need the most is a constant replenishment of goods. I was happy to drop off different medical supplies and fill the cabinets with food. We then we went to an unofficial refugee camp.
I mentioned earlier that the refugees have moved locations, but I didn’t state why. There were a few world events that changed things in this city. On my last trip to Tijuana there were just below 3,000 Central American refugee and asylum seekers. This number increased by over 100%, which means over 6,000 refugees have found their way into Tijuana from Central America. They were being housed in the Benito Juarez sports complex on my last visit. This time the Benito Juarez center was almost empty. There are multiple reasons for this. The Benito Juarez Center is an outdoor sports complex that was densely populated with makeshift tents on my last visit. Shortly after I left, there were large amounts of rain that poured down in Tijuana — in turn ruining the biggest refugee camp in Tijuana. This displaced many already displaced people.
The Caravan is not centered in just one place like it use to be. The five main built up areas are outside la Unidad Deportiva Benito Juárez, El Barretal (an old bar capable of housing many people), camps built up near the border, and people split into small churches/organizations across Tijuana. Granted, some of this is a good thing. It gives real shelter to people and allows them to sleep inside buildings. It also gives more opportunities for people to become individually treated and helped while not being forgotten about in a huge arena which is incapable of properly helping everyone. However, the splitting up of the Caravan is also a negative thing. It makes giving equal aid to the Caravan harder. The new governmental main refugee camp in “El Barretal” is in one of the dodgy neighborhoods in East Tijuana. It is a lot harder to get to from the central areas of Tijuana. It also turns off many NGO workers from going to the main camp because of fear for their own safety. The question that stays with me is if the Mexican government put the refugees far away from central Tijuana to give the illusion of “normalcy” and an end to a humanitarian disaster by putting people running from violence in one of the most dangerous areas of Tijuana. This is a question that causes me pain because people running from violence were sectioned off into violent areas of Tijuana. No matter what the intention was of this act, the action puts refugees in more danger.
When I arrived at one of the unofficial refugee camps, I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the refugees had real tents this time. We had access to the barricaded region designated for refugees in “Zona Norte”. My team of three went to the entrance of the unofficial refugee camp. We carried the documents on how to seek asylum/refugee status in the United States, food, water, hygiene products, and clothes. We handed them out one by one to people. Each person that we gave the supplies to made sure that the rest of the Caravan got supplies as well. The Caravan seems to have developed an intensely caring community of people that are looking out for each other. When I took out baby food, a refugee who had not received supplies yet, led me directly to a big family that needed baby food. That refugee made sure that before he took anything, others were taken care of first. This sense of community and desire to take care of each other is something that continues to inspire me and teaches me lessons on how to live my own life.
I learned some very specific things about what needs to be given. First off, people are sick. It’s turning into flu season and people are in a situation where access to proper sanitation is low. In a sealed off densely populated camp with limited access to medical care, sickness spreads fast. I was happy that my small team of aid workers were able to bring hand sanitizers, wet wipes, mouth wash, and feminine products. Things that are also in dire need are things such as shoes and pants. The Caravan walked thousands of miles and have foot pain and ripped pants. Some people were without shoes and some were walking around with used flip flops and crocs most likely donated by people from San Diego that were mislead on what was an appropriate donation. What people need are closed toed shoes, more hygiene products, and clothes that are appropriate for sleeping outside during winter time.
When visiting the second refugee camp, we came across the man in charge of running it. The man was a pastor in Tijuana who transformed his mission into helping the refugees from the Caravan. Refugees inside of the camp were singing beautiful songs of hope and chatting. We gave the pastor 400 copies of our documents to distribute. These documents will help him give information on the next steps of the asylum and refugee process. We also provided his camp with clothes, bottles of water, baby food, and regular food. We stopped and chatted for a little while about the opportunities and the difficulties the refugees have in Mexico and entering the United States.
It was only yesterday that a federal judge overturned Donald Trump’s law that prevented asylum seekers from Honduras access to the United States. While it is a positive thing that Hondurans can seek asylum in the United States once again, entering the U.S. comes with a set of new issues for them. Finding housing, learning English, getting long term employment, and long term medical/psychiatric treatment isn’t easy. If Donald Trump took the 5 billion dollars he proposed for a border wall, and instead placed money into programs to help these people, it would make life great for so many of them. The United States could create new programs for the education, treatment, and housing of the refugees. Instead, it chooses to further militarize its border with Mexico, mistakenly hoping it will solve this situation. These refugees are stuck in a land of limbo. They are so close to the United States that they can see the border fence from their refugee camps, but still so far away that many months await them.
I have already started planning for my next refugee aid trip to Tijuana. The situation requires more people to step up and help them. Today, the United States is talking about a government shut down over the border wall, and all I can think about are all the refugees I met yesterday needing food and clean water seeking nothing but peace and stability.
