Four Lines
(This article was published in ArtLoveLifestyle Magazine. To republish, please provide a link to ArtLoveLifestyle magazine in the article.)
Brownsville, TEXAS, May 2022 - Lines, a reality that migrants at the U.S./Mexico border know all too well—lines for food, lines for clothes, lines for a shower. On my trip to the border with Casa De Paz SLV, I witnessed how the fates of asylum seekers were determined by the line they were allowed to wait in.
When working with unaccompanied minors in Brownsville, Texas, I witnessed the line of order. One that the children were accustomed to; the “fila” to get to a field trip, a meal, school or recreation outside. This line was temporary, a way to quickly count heads and enforce rules. With increased numbers of unaccompanied minors crossing over the border, the enforcement of these lines becomes paramount. Staff members felt the weight of their role knowing they were responsible for keeping each one of these kids safe, a lot of whom were being reunited with their families.
In an unaccompanied minor’s shelter, just like in detention for adults, a line can serve as a reminder of captivity, even if that captivity is temporary. That captivity was felt but superseded by the ties each child had, to each other and their families. Some talked of their own children as being motivating factors. Others discussed music as being a guiding force through this time. One was an avid drummer. Their taste in music varied from Credence Clearwater to Bad Bunny. Their artwork in which they were asked to reflect on their identity and their identity in relation to others mirrored this variety.
In Reynosa, Mexico, where we served for the majority of our final day, a line meant three things. In the plaza where thousands waited for legal consultation, a line meant desperation. As we passed a line of over one hundred people standing in the bright sun adjacent to the weather worn tents they lived in, one man asked us for legal consult. Those in line were seeking the same.
The dirt on children’s clothing, the lack of food and sanitary items and the absence of organized humanitarian support communicated that the conditions in this location were far worse than those that had previously existed in Matamoros, Mexico. An extra variable asylum seekers contended with in Reynosa was fear of robbery, rape, assault and kidnapping. Desperation was an understatement as families crowded around our bus pressing the pastor who ran the shelter to give them a way out of that situation. A seven-year old boy and his mother had been kidnapped while living in the plaza in Reynosa and were now in the shelter awaiting their asylum claim.
Outside the shelter in Reynosa, a line meant exasperation. Upon our arrival, we witnessed large crowds of hundreds of migrants from Central America, South America and Haiti waiting outside for their chance to stay in this shelter. They were surrounded by run-down shacks that they were paying rent to live in, as their name progressed down the long waiting list that was their only ticket into this location.
The coveted aspect of this shelter: a gate that separated them from the danger that Reynosa posed. Though most of the migrants in the shelter remained outside in tents, they were provided some amenities that those in the plaza didn’t have, such as three meals a day and bathrooms that included showers.
While doing relational based artwork with children and their parents, a few asylum seekers in the shelter were rifling through the belongings that were left behind. Some were seeking a clean T-shirt or pair of underwear. This communicated that even when in a desired location, asylum seekers still lacked basic necessities.
The children with whom we did art therapy often presented as older than their age as the compounded obstacles of the journey, the persecution they experienced at home and the challenges of living outside in Mexico caused them to grow up too soon. When they were asked if they were leaving that day, they would say “Manana, si Dios permite,” (Tomorrow if God allows it). It was clearly a phrase their parents used to temper their child’s expectations in a situation where anything could change moment by moment. But coming out of an eight-year old’s mouth, it communicated a maturity that was earned but not desired. Because of this, the chance to be kids for a moment was inviting, whether that meant drawing pictures for their “Art teacher” or pretending their yoga mat was a race car.
It was clear each child was looking for connection. As a therapist I have learned just how much relationships can be a stabilizing force in the wake of trauma. Drawing and yoga were a conduit for those relationships, in which drawing a flower, or a house could lead to a deeper conversation about how to have a sense of belonging in a place where they were given the message that they don’t belong. The impact of these relationships was shown in the amount of time each child spent completing art and their readiness to try yoga, an activity not commonly practiced by most of the families we served. After trauma informed yoga, one Haitian boy was found practicing the tree pose on his own next to his tent. I could see how he connected to it, a small part of his world that he could control when his asylum status was something he could not.
Adults looking for calm and serenity benefited from yoga and massage therapy. One man encouraged another to join yoga, saying that it helped relax his mind from the worries he felt so frequently in the shelter. Many complained of ailments like chronic headaches, diabetes and muscle tension. We offered massage therapy, medicinal teas and essential oils as natural remedies that could aid any medical support they were already getting. Doctors Without Borders had visited this shelter, and through the questions asylum seekers asked, it was clear they thought we were healthcare professionals and were looking for further medical care. In the process of informing them we weren’t, we learned that one woman was diabetic without access to any insulin.
In the backdrop of all these experiences was the final kind of line: the line of hope. When we first arrived at the shelter, there was a line of families with backpacks and suitcases in front of a school bus that would take them across the border legally. We gave families snacks and water bottles for their journey. In the five-hour period that we were in Reynosa, three busloads of families were brought over to the United States.
Towards the end of the day, I was waiting in the church’s outdoor courtyard when a line of fifty people walked to the bus that would take them out of the holding pattern in Reynosa into a line where they were walking forward towards their end goal in McAllen, Texas. Those who had to remain cheered and clapped, letting go of their anguish for a moment to celebrate with their friends. Elation was the feeling I sensed from them as they hurried quickly to collect their belongings. The atmosphere was jubilant, creating a levity that was scarce in this border town, one they wished to be the rule rather than the exception.
Of all the lines I experienced that weekend, this one was by far the best. The type of line asylum seekers came all this way to get in. It didn’t exempt them from being in other lines, like the line to asylum status for example, but it kept them from gambling with their life in a line that they did not choose. That simple act of agency, something those who experienced trauma gravely need, can so often be the necessary link in the progression between despair and hope in the life of a new immigrant.
Our service continues as holistic trauma informed retreats in Crestone, Colorado, as well as online support for asylum seekers and new immigrants.
Author: Rae Reed, LCSW from Chicago and Casa de Paz SLV Board Chair has been working with refugees and asylum seekers for many years in government and private agencies. This is Rae’s fifth trip to the border encampments. Rae’s hope is that one day soon asylum seekers will be able to safely await their asylum cases in the US. To learn more about Casa de Paz SLV or to donate or volunteer, visit www.casadepazslv.org.
Reinstated Remain in Mexico & The Ones Who Made It
Two-Part Series Articles:
Reinstated Remain in Mexico - Policy Remains
& The Ones Who Made It
During the holiday week in December, during one of my many visits to the Rio Grande Valley, I find myself in a familiar position, pulling carts into Mexico with basic necessities and art therapy supplies for families waiting for asylum. As I walk across the border, the Rio Grande ushers in that transition, it’s muddy waters harkening to the danger in its midst, the many people who have waded in its waters, the final obstacle before entering the United States. I walk above it, suspended in air by concrete and steel while others who don’t have the papers to cross this way gamble their fate down below.
I meet Sister Norma of Catholic Charities on this bridge, a local legend. I am representing Casa De Paz SLV, of Crestone, Colorado, whose mission is to provide holistic trauma support for asylum seekers and new immigrants.
As we cross, local cartels watch all those who enter Mexico to see if they could benefit from us, through our influence or money. This could mean kidnapping. My options are to go to the plaza where more scouts await with less people to accompany me or go to a protected outdoor shelter with many staff to ensure safety. I am alone, I need to be smart. I feel a tinge of guilt as I ride in the back of the passenger van on the way to the shelter, knowing that the asylum seekers I will not be visiting weren’t granted the privilege of this choice.
When I arrive at the shelter there is a huddle of kids weaving bracelets that a volunteer group from Mississippi gave them. Next to them is an industrial kitchen used to make meals and provide snacks for asylum seekers. There is a large cement courtyard with an awning over it that’s being used for the living space of the 1,200 people that live there. There are camping tents in neat rows that the asylum seekers are living in. It’s very similar to the de-facto refugee camp that existed in Matamoros only a year ago. Some of the asylum seekers have been there for four months. Though this shelter is more protected than the open air courtyard at the border with Matamoros, the desperation that the migrants face is the same. I imagine that at the courtyard, this desperation coupled with added vulnerability must create an untenable situation that they have to live with for months.
To begin our art therapy exercises, I hand out the art kits that were donated. The children create a line and I give out one item to each child. They are crowded around, coveting a pack of crayons because they haven’t owned something like this in months. It becomes survival of the fittest and we work hard to make sure everyone gets something.
What will always stick out is the moment I circulate hygiene items to adults. They crowd around me in a circle, becoming animated when I bring out underwear and wet wipes, pushing to have access to everyday necessities that have quickly become a luxury for these asylum seekers.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, an adult woman pleading for a pair of underwear like it’s $100. To them it’s a commodity, like cigarettes in a prison, and this is their own jail. They can’t go back home; gangs there have already put a target on their back due to them refusing to respond to their demands. They can’t get into the U.S.; they have been barred entry or deported from here. So, they’re stuck in this camp, waiting, unsure how long their sentence will be.
If this were a funded refugee camp, they would be given basic provisions. Yes, asylum seekers in this shelter are provided with three meals a day, but they’re living in a tent that was intended for temporary lodging with barely the clothing to manage that feat. Think about how dirty one gets camping, then add to that living near a desert and sharing a bathroom space with over 1,200 people. When the temperature drops, they will face inclimate weather without proper clothing.
It’s the little things that people want, not a new Iphone or a nice piece of jewelry, but a pair of socks, a hat to shade their head from the sun, a mask to protect them from COVID. During social-emotional art therapy with kids, the most coveted item is a mask to decorate. Children ask for one for them, one for their mom, one for their brother. They decorate them with hearts, spiraling flowers and their names. They are adept at this, creating designs that make anything, even an object to protect one from a deadly disease, palatable. I remember these decorations from when I lived in Honduras, they were on their walls with their pictures, in their cards they gave to one another, on their school assignments. There is something about drawing on these masks that connect them to this process, to home. I imagine when displaced in a country that they never intended to go to, where there is unwelcome sentiment towards them, a taste of home, even if it’s on a picnic table in a concrete courtyard with hundreds of other children, can be everything.
Children use animal stamps they are given, filling the page with the animal whose qualities they are to learn from. They write encouraging words on glass stones to help them feel protected during trying times. I could see it, the strain they were feeling, in the pictures they drew of family with houses, the one thing they don’t have right now, the one thing they want. Children push to share with me and the other volunteers what they made, happy to have a distraction from the long days with no school and few toys to play with.
As I leave, they beg me to stay or at least leave the art supplies. They finish their time with me by pulling each other in my carts, overjoyed by the momentary excitement of something new. When the play becomes too rough, teenage boys who are not related to them instruct them to stop and after some crying, the children listen. It’s a demonstration of the greater sense of family that has developed in this camp, despite danger and competition for scarce resources that otherwise would have pitted them against each other. Individualism is dangerous here, there is no place for it.
Here in the U.S. we see the ones who made it, missing all the stories of those whose lives were lost or are indefinitely delayed due to the Remain in Mexico Policy that was recently reinstated as a result of a Texas court case that prevented President Biden from terminating MPP (The Remain in Mexico Policy). In Mexico, we see that hope of a new life diminish as survival is whittled down to finding enough sanitary items in a cramped camp in the midst of a pandemic. The journey is perilous without the increased risks of COVID-19, as migrants on both side of the border can attest to. The high level of need is communicated by the lines of children begging for a mask, showing us that staying in a camp outside of the U.S. will not necessarily stop an outbreak, it will just change the country it’s in.
Let’s think critically about the best way to meet the wave of asylum seekers at the border, knowing that the solution is not packed detention centers just as much as it’s not thousands outside in tents in a dangerous Mexican city. Though focusing on the root cause of this migration is a good long-term goal, we need thoughtful solutions to the immediate need of those at our border. Letting those who seek asylum cross into the U.S and wait for their case to be tried, where they can be seen on a case by case basis rather than a country by country basis is the first step in that process. There are many other steps to be considered. Let’s put the best minds together in solving a problem that persists that many have forgotten, bringing it back into the limelight where it belongs.
Part 2: The Ones Who Made It
When taking a shift with Team Brownsville at the Brownsville bus station, all looked the same as my previous visits. I still saw hundreds of men and women sit in the same seven rows of chairs, documents and soiled clothes their sole possessions. I still saw men bathing themselves in the sink of the public restroom with the soap they were gifted. I still saw long lines of families seeking assistance booking transportation to their destinations in the U.S. So, my assumption was that the border was functioning in a similar way that it had when I visited in March of 2021 doing holistic trauma support with the same organization.
But I was wrong.
Because when I was asked to help the asylum seekers check in with their country of origin, the three countries that represented the majority of migrants to this region (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala) were not written down. Instead, the most prevalent nationalities were Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. Though percentages of those from the Northern Triangle had decreased in recent months, they still made up the majority of those seeking asylum.
The Migrant Protection Protocols is a Trump era policy that required those who came to the U.S. border with Mexico who were from a country not adjacent to the U.S. to await their asylum court hearing in a country that is next to the US: Mexico. It was just recently reinstated in December of 2021. Title 42 is a policy that limits migration during the coronavirus epidemic to decrease the spread of disease. It has been used as a tool to keep out immigrants since the Trump presidency.
A man from Nicaragua who I will call Saul approached me, brave enough to ask what the others were thinking, “How do I get a bus ticket if I don’t have money? Where can I stay for the night if my journey is tomorrow?”
I informed him of a local hotel he could stay in. He arranged for his cousin to pay for the night. His travel buddies, who I will call Ernesto and Omar decided to room with him to help cover the cost.
As I drove them to their hotel, they answered the burning question I didn’t feel appropriate to ask: why no one from the Northern Triangle was welcomed at the bus station that day.
“All those from El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala were deported and sent back into Mexico. They were told to wait for their asylum trial there,” He told me.
Due to the political situation in Nicaragua which included police brutality against its citizens, and dictatorial actions by the government, Nicaraguans are given special permission to seek asylum. These three men expressed fear regarding the police attacking any citizens opposing the government. In addition, Venezuelans and Cubans are given a similar permission for entry due to the US’s stance on socialism and communism and the humanitarian crises that currently exists there.
At their hotel, once showered and rested, I brought the three men dinner. They commented on how hungry they were as they were given only small sandwiches during the day in the Border Patrol facility where they were detained. They called the quarters they stayed in the hielera, ice box in English, due to how cold it was. The air conditioning was put on high and they were only given a Mylar blanket to sleep with that they referenced as a piece of aluminum. Migrants slept in a room with over fifty people. The cells themselves were made for forty people, making them crowd next to one another when they needed sleep. The detention center where they stayed in McAllen, TX was one of the largest in the area. They were there for eight days, five days longer than the 72 hours they were supposed to be detained.
Omar described this as part of the sacrifice he had to make for his own freedom, a sign of the desperation he felt while living in unrest in Nicaragua. This wasn’t the only moment in his journey where he withstood horrific conditions. He traveled for a majority of his journey with the two men rooming with him at the hotel. On one leg of the journey, they rode in the back of a truck with 400 other people! There were no windows with little ventilation. It was tepid and suffocating. Another truck was behind them with the same amount of people. Initially, the bus drivers told them to go in that second truck, but at the last minute they changed their minds and directed them to the first one. Along the journey the second truck got into an accident and toppled over. Sixty asylum seekers died that day stuck in a crowded car, their last memory the inside of a dark caddie away from the family they held dear.
The significance was not lost on Omar. He knew deeply that this could have been his last day. Instead, in the process of a week, he found himself on American soil ready to reunite with his family. He didn’t want to call it blessed, because that did not bode well for those that didn’t make it, he didn’t want to call it lucky, because he didn’t believe in that, he called it a miracle because he couldn’t comprehend it and that was the word reserved for those things beyond our understanding.
It amazes me that this was the best-case scenario for asylum seekers coming into our country, so close to death it hung in the dust of the truck with which they crossed the border. Thousands from Central America risk this fate every day in Mexico, and yet the U.S mandates they stay there as they await their case. National rhetoric around immigration remains antiquated; focusing on deportations and restricting access rather than reforming a system that doesn’t work for both sides of the political aisle. Emotions are high without even considering the state of those whose only option is to make the journey up north. Let’s make our decisions based on the stories, then the data, rather than looking at each face as another number crossing our border.
Author: Rae Reed, LCSW from Chicago and Casa de Paz SLV Board Chair has been working with refugees and asylum seekers for many years in government and private agencies. Rae’s hope is that one day soon asylum seekers will be able to safely await their asylum cases in the US.
Sources:
Chishti, Muzaffar, and Jessica Bolter. “Court-Ordered Relaunch of Remain in Mexico Policy Tweaks Predecessor Program, but Faces Similar Challenges.” Policy Beat, 2 Dec. 2021.
Soboroff, Jacob, and Julia Ainsley. “McAllen, Texas, Immigration Processing Center Is Largest in U.S.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 20 June 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mcallen-texas-immigration-processing-center-largest-u-s-n884126.
VILLAREAL, MIREYA, et al. “Inside a Border Patrol Facility Holding 16 Times More Migrants than Its Capacity.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 31 Mar. 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-border-patrol-migrant-holding-facility-over-capacity/.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/04/biden-mpp-mexico/
THE TRAUMA BEHIND THE SMILES
What fate awaits asylum seekers now, as Trump continues to deport traumatized families back to their countries of origin, where they fled for their lives. Global trauma escalates, while the US border remains closed. Overcrowding in refugee camps and detention centers can only end badly with the spread of the corona virus on the rise. Let us remember why our global brothers and sisters are politely knocking on our door for asylum.
It’s been about a year and a half since my attention was drawn to the border. Initially, the nonprofit I formed, Casa de Paz SLV, was meant to be a post-acute holistic trauma support center for asylum seekers in transition, as they become new immigrants. Because of the high suicide rates, bullying and school shootings in the US, it seemed important to create a place for asylum seekers to heal from their immigration journey before entering society. The US does not need more mental health crisis’. It soon came to light that new immigrants were maintaining a low profile, earning a living and not feeling safe to travel for a retreat. For this reason, Casa de Paz SLV continued to serve in, what is now known as, the Matamoros Refugee Camp in Mexico.
Casa de Paz SLV volunteer teams have consisted of artists, musicians, art educators, yoga instructors, nurses, therapists and bodyworkers. In the beginning, we offered our services alongside existing programs, like the sidewalk schools, at shelters for asylum seekers and at the bus station, where asylum seekers were dropped off after being in detention.
Soon we found a location for our base of operations, where we offer yoga classes, art therapy and private sessions simultaneously. During these sessions, we provide healthy snacks like almonds and coconut water. We also distribute medicinal herbal sun tea kits and aromatherapy sprays and roll ons for calming, sleep, digestion, women’s health and immune boosting. To our surprise, our services have been very well received. Natural medicine is the norm in most Central American villages. Many even understand the concepts of energy healing.
Most of our clients are families. Single mothers, their children, teens and some fathers and single men. Initially, many of our clients had serious untreated conditions like cancer, the flu and thyroid issues. Tension, fear and anxiety are chronic mental health issues among the refugees. When they were with us, receiving our services, they are able to leave all that behind or transform it.
We work hard carrying supplies, setting up our pop-up retreat center and serving approximately 100 or more refugees per service day. Although always greeted with a smile and gratitude, we also have the privilege of witnessing their immigration stories.
What have we witnessed behind the smile?
Children and parents who do not know where their next meal will come from. Anxious parents. Hungry children.
Early on, we would see young single mothers with a baby on their breast, and often with another young child in tow. These mothers were too weak and hungry to even move. They would ask for help, as they sat on the sidewalk unbathed and in dirty clothing.
During her private session, one mother, who had just arrived at the camp with her two tween aged children, said that receiving the private session was, “like a dream”. It had been SO long since she had any time to herself.
During our first mission, a tween girl from Guatemala helped us gather a group for yoga. She wore a conservative Guatemalan dress, was very confident and enthusiastic. She told me that she was at the camp because a gang wanted her parents to pay them with her and her sisters. The next time I saw her at the camp, about 2 months later, she was wearing tight leather pants, a short leather jacket and sneakers worth over $100. Later that week, when we talked at the laundry washing station, an older unfriendly woman (about age 40) hovered over us. “Unfriendly” was rare to experience. The girl was not able to talk freely or attend our program. The older woman would not talk to me. My best guess is that she may have been her pimp.
Another young girl about age 8, with dirty face and dusty rags for clothing, grabbed one of our new yoga mats from the cart at one of the sidewalk schools. When I asked for it back and told her it was for the classes, with an angry face, she refused to give it back and ran off with it. She was so desperate for something of her own.
Usually, none of the children or adults ever ask for anything during our classes. When offered something, they only take one. They leave our programs giving us hugs and smiles of gratitude for the classes, private sessions, healthy snacks, drinks, aromatherapy and medicinal herbal sun tea kits we gave them.
Children and adults caught between two evils. When we asked our clients to draw a safe place, they often did not know what to draw. Some drew their homes in Central America, knowing that was no longer a safe place. Some drew their dreams of being in the US. A safe home. A playground. Some drew pictures of a river between them and the US. The river had a shark in it. To the credit of our program, by the end of our second mission, most of our students drew pictures of the pop-up retreat center that we created for them. They drew people on yoga mats surrounded by candles and holding art.
While one tween girl attended our 10-day program, her brother was murdered back in Honduras because a gang was looking for her and she wasn’t there.
One of our young male clients, shared his story of being held in a detention center in Louisiana. He said his wrist and ankles were always in chains and he even had to eat with his hands chained.
A dirty young girl, about age 6, wandered the streets alone. She radiated to what was inherently good. She attended all our programs, every mission. She told me she has no mother. She is with her father and her sister. I was always worried about her safety.
Most who received chair massages, would moan in gratitude. There are always long lines for massages. Mothers would pass off their babies to their older child, so they could receive. Some would receive right after telling their immigration story to the attorney’s helping them to get asylum. These refugees often appeared as if they had just relived that past trauma. Exhausted and depressed. Their stories often included being physically or sexually abused by gang members, coyotes and government officials. Some withstood multiple experiences like this and had the physical and emotional scars to prove it.
Much of the trauma we witnessed was also the result of family separation. Some family members were able to cross into the US for medical reasons or because the trauma they experienced was bad enough to be granted asylum. However, their spouse and certain children were unable to cross into the US. So many suffered as they waited, with one child, for their court case to be approved. Some gave up, sent their child across alone and went home to whatever fate awaited them.
When we arrived at the camp, we were always greeted with smiles and hugs. When we left, we would see the reality in their faces. Desperation. Depression. Lost hope. Parents holding their children to comfort them, but also to comfort themselves.
Gina Barrett is the Volunteer Acting Director, Founder and Board Chair of Casa de Paz SLV, a non-profit organization based in Crestone, Colorado. The Casa de Paz SLV mission is to provide post-acute holistic trauma support to asylum seekers and new immigrants. Gina laid the foundation and led three 10-day missions over the course of the past year to provide holistic trauma support services to asylum seeker families living in the Matamoros, Mexico Refugee Camp. Now, Gina directs a team of holistic trauma support volunteer educators and practitioners that offer weekly services to asylum seekers online and in person. To date, Casa de Paz SLV has provided basic needs and holistic trauma support services to over 3000 asylum seeker families waiting at the Texas/Mexico border. To learn more about the services offered by Casa de Paz SLV, to volunteer or donate, visit www.casadepazslv.org