Eastern braces the border

The first week of March was spring break at Eastern. Students fanned out across the country to take vacations, reunite with families or just to bed rot for a week. But the students in the Campolo Center for Ministry chose to spend their break in a unique way, taking a pilgrimage down to the borderlands with Eastern staff to check out what was happening, build connections and serve on both sides of the border.

Leilanie Lima, a freshman Campolo student, described the purpose of the trip as primarily educational. “We were just going to educate ourselves more about the immigration process, have fellowship with the migrants that are there, and the main thing that we emphasized is that we’re going as learners, not necessarily missionaries…Jane, who is our leader, would always call us pilgrims.”

Landing first in Austin, Texas, the group partnered with Fellowship Southwest, a ministry for migrants. The ministry prepped the group on what the group may experience and the do’s and don’ts as well as accompanying them the whole time. The team then crossed the border into Mexico, a strange experience for De’shon Cooper, a sophomore who traveled with Campolo.

“Before we went over, I took a picture to capture the moment, and it was kind of surreal…we had to leave our vans. We had to walk across. So it’s something different about that experience of having whatever you had…your luggage, the backpack, whatever you have with you, you’re carrying that over,” Cooper said. 

Yet for all the surrealness of the moment, it was a smooth and easy process, revealing gaps in media portrayal of the border. “My understanding is the media portrays the border to be out of control [and] there’s a lot of chaos. But what we saw is there’s organization. There wasn’t any chaoticness or any hiccups that we experienced crossing over the border,” Cooper said. And yet, there was a clear disparity between the sides of the border. “The US side over to Mexico there wasn’t a line of cars whereas on the Mexico side going into [the] US it was like bumper to bumper,” Cooper observed.

The couple days spent in Mexico revealed real stories of strangers that left an impression upon the student. One man stood up in the church service they were attending and shared his story, one that Cooper retold. The man had traveled from Guatemala, passing through the Darien Gap in Panama. The man had witnessed the death of one of his friends, narrowly escaped death himself, saw countless bodies and lost his belongings to cartels before making it to Mexico. “But at the end [of the story] he pointed up and said, ‘I thank God that I’m still here.’ And that’s moving…you know, if he can still keep the faith in spite of what he went through, why can’t I?”

Cooper was also surprised by the amount of international migrants, not just Latinos. “Something that I learned on the trip was it’s not just the Hispanic community but it’s Haitians, Asians, [etc.]. Anybody that’s not born here in The US or wants to come to The US is a migrant…so it’s not only affecting [latinos], but other communities.” 

The group returned to the states, going through a much longer and more involved process crossing the border. They saw a shelter for families seeking asylum, as well as traveling to an impoverished neighborhood in Texas where many immigrants from Latin America settle. The team planned to serve at an organization to combat the dire effects of poverty in that neighborhood. “It was a house that just gave out food and items to families who live locally, who you know don’t have access to food or were in food deserts,” Cooper explained. And yet, the day the Campolo team showed up, hardly any people came to take advantage of the resources. Lima recounted, “One of our leaders was asking if the reason there weren’t a lot of people here today was because we’re here and [the woman running the program] said ‘yeah, they’re afraid of you guys…and ICE came last week as well,’” 

For Cathleen Saunders, a freshman Campolo student, the main takeaway of the trip was the importance of connection to dispel false narratives and the universal value of love. “What I can take from this trip is this: People are important. Words and actions matter. Knowledge is key. People live in ignorance, choice or not, it hurts real people. It is leaving people broken and hurt. However, no matter how many times I have heard and seen people get broken down, beaten, bruised, maimed, and left to be thought about last, their strength comes from God, their resiliency, their hope and dedication for the deep love for their families comes from Christ.”

“They are beautiful, strong people made in imago Dei,” Saunders continued. “Every living thing and being is. There will always be hope. There will always be a love that is greater than the oppression. To sum up the trip in one word, in one single word that follows and demonstrates the law is this: Love.” Saunders has also written a longer reflection for those curious to hear more. She can be reached at cathleen.saunders@eastern.edu.

Cooper summed up the entire trip in three words: “formative, heartbreaking but inspiring.” The trip left him pondering hatred and division more intensely, as well as learning more about the nuances of immigration. “A lot of [migrants are] leaving because of oppressive dictatorship or economic wealth. So there’s the persecution that they’re experiencing…as probable causes for why one is seeking asylum and or refuge from the country that they’re born in. It’s not just, oh, well, they wanna be in a different place. It’s a reason. And you have to ask yourself the question, why? Why would one want to leave the place that they were born at and probably feel the most secure and safe to flee to the US?” 

Being the only Latina on the trip, Lima had slightly different takeaways than the others. “I think my experience was a little bit different because all of my life, I’ve been exposed to immigrants and immigration stories. Like, my dad and his mom, so it wasn’t as much of a shock factor for me as it was for others. So I think my biggest takeaway was I felt the hateful rhetoric right in my face. That was something big for me because I know racism exists. I know that the media portrays immigrants as criminals. But being at the border was such a different experience where you just feel the tension, and you feel the division between US citizens and Americans versus the migrants.”

The division and hatred caused emotional reactions for Lima while out on a tour of the Rio Grande river. “When we saw the wall [the tour guide] explained how tall it was, and one [non-Eastern] guy said, ‘not tall enough.’ And I remember that day, I broke down crying because I was just so mad…I was like, why are people so afraid of others that are different [from] them?”

Yet through the emotion, Lima came to a surprising conclusion. “I was just crying, and I was like, what a privilege that I can just cry about the situation and not have ever had to experience it.” 

Even though the students faced a bleak situation, Cooper held onto hope. “We had sung the song, “We Shall Overcome,”…which is kind of a glimmer of hope in the midst of what it feels like the doom and gloom and the hopelessness of the here and now. There still is some glimmer of hope that we can hold on to.” In the same breath, Cooper stressed the action of hope. “Being a part of the change that you want to see, however you can by doing things such as advocacy work, signing different petitions, going to different and [calling your legislators], things that will positively affect immigration and deportation.”