border

Carissa Zaffiro 1-11-2023

Late last week, the White House announced new enforcement measures at the U.S.-Mexico border. Among other things, these measures expand the pathway for migrants from Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua to receive two years of legal entry if they have an eligible U.S. sponsor — and allow the administration to expedite removal of migrants from these nations who cross into the U.S. from Mexico without documentation. It’s unclear what the full human impact of these measures will be, but when I read the news, my heart broke for those whose pathway to safety just slipped even further out of reach.

Sarah Einselen 5-18-2022

Asylum-seeking migrants are detained by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after crossing the Rio Bravo river to turn themselves in to request asylum in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on March 30, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

The Biden administration is fighting a legal battle to end the use of Title 42, a policy that has effectively closed the U.S. Southern Border to asylum-seekers for more than two years. Numerous faith-based organizations that work with immigrants have called on the administration to return to pre-pandemic asylum processing.

The cover of "Decolonizing Christianity"

EUROCENTRIC CHRISTIANITY, since the days of Constantine, has predominately served as an apologist for authoritarian regimes, be they emperors, kings, crusading popes, or military dictators. In the last century alone, Eurocentric Christian jargon sustained and supported brutal regimes guilty of unimaginable human rights violations. Think of how the Catholic Church, fearing the loss of power during Spain’s Second Republic, threw its support behind the right-wing politics of the usurper Francisco Franco, who cloaked himself as a defender of religious liberties. The church stood by him as he ignited a civil war against the seculariziation of society, turning a blind eye to the Spanish killing fields. ...

Megan Janetsky 5-28-2020

Staff at Casa del Migrante prepares food for migrants still houses at the shelter during the pandemic with a facemask on. Photo courtesy Casa del Migrante

“The big, big risk in Tijuana is that somebody comes, and if they're sick, where do I send them? There is no option,” he said. “The general hospital won't take them unless they're a certain level of sick, they have to be severely sick, so there is no structure here.”

Elisa Rowe 8-05-2019

Illustration by Ric Carrasquillo

I am Peter at Gethsemane
where I wake to oak
branches suspended,
spinning like hair in water.

Flora’s night
blanched, a prophet’s
chanting, every caesura’s
quiet steeping, transfiguring
grief to alms.

Kelly Rissman 7-26-2019

Activists protest the treatment of children in immigration detention outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Border Patrol station facilities in Texas. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez Gonzalez

Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) said that there is a “dangerous subculture at the agency that cannot be tolerated and must be addressed.” She was referring to offensive comments in a CBP private Facebook group, allegations of detained children being kicked to wake them up by CBP agents, and reports of abuse and sexual assault of detained migrants by CBP officers.

Matt Reynolds 7-12-2019

Image via the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General/ REUTERS

Ocasio-Cortez insisted on being sworn in, taking the unusual step after several Republicans on the panel sought to blame conditions at border patrol stations on what they said was Democratic inacmition on drug cartels and other criminals trying to enter the country illegally with children.

Pilar Timpane 7-03-2019

These retablos reflect on the faith that people had to begin the journey of migration, entering a foreign land. Often leaving family and home into the unknown, on a journey that is fraught with peril but also promise. Young fathers and mothers, children of families who will pray for them daily as they go. As the exhibit description mentioned, these retablos "depict a side of migration usually not told in statistical reports or even in detailed interviews of migrants."

Brandon Massey 7-03-2019

An overcrowded fenced area holding families at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas. June 10, 2019. Office of Inspector General/DHS/Handout via REUTERS

As a student of the history of biblical interpretation, the rhetoric employed by Dobson and other evangelical leaders is frighteningly similar to that of German pastors and theologians in the Third Reich. It appears that Christians have either forgotten or are ignoring the dark history of Christianity’s marriage to partisan politics and nationalist agendas.

Image via REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Trump is fighting the battle on two fronts, trying to stop migrants from coming in the first place and deporting those who have been released into the United States.

Aaron E. Sanchez 6-12-2019

Wikimedia Commons

My family walks a palimpsest, on translations and mistranslations of rivers, of people, of places, of faith. My family walks on unfinished words that have yet to be formed, stuck on molar, in mouths, being shaped by tongues that twist two into one. My family walks on places unfinished and already traversed.

Aaron E. Sanchez 5-14-2019

Sonoran desert near Phoenix, Ariz.

I stared down at the bones. Whether covered under centuries of sand or exposed to sun, the body was claimed by the desert in life and afterlife. Even though it had been uncovered decades earlier, the dust of the desert never released it from its grip. Father Francisco Eusebio Kino died far from his Italian home. Migrants along the way had told me of the crypt of the Jesuit priest who had missionized the Sonoran Desert 300 years prior. He first entered this desert on a mission in 1687 and it swallowed him in 1711.

U.S. President Donald Trump and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Nov. 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

It will come as no surprise when President Trump continues his anti-immigrant agenda, ignoring well-established U.S. asylum law and putting children and families in harm’s way even after Secretary Nielsen’s abrupt departure. We know that President Trump forced Secretary Nielsen to resign to find someone willing to enforce even more cruelty at the border. The question now is what unchecked harm he will unleash after the purge of the Department of Homeland Security is complete.

the Web Editors 1-25-2019

Migrants from Central America are seen escorted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials after crossing the border from Mexico. Dec. 3, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

The U.S. government will return the first group of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Friday, U.S. and Mexican officials said, marking the start of a major policy shift by the Trump administration.

The policy, dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and first announced on Dec. 20, will return migrants, including non-Mexicans, who cross the U.S. southern border back to wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts.

One of the prototypes of a border wall in Otay County, U.S., photographed through the border wall in Tijuana, Mexico, Jan. 3, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Leaders want to spend billions, not to help people living in desperation, but on the wall. We must ask ourselves, and our elected leaders, what are the true costs when we allow ourselves to be consumed by fear? Are we willing to put the wall ahead of the God of mercy who came to us as a child fleeing violence? Thousands of God’s children remain in the squalor of tent cities in Tijuana and detention centers, unwelcome in Mexico and the United States. Some are returning to violence at home having lost any hope for asylum they are legally entitled to request.

Image via Reuters/Josue Decavele

O God of great compassion, you love each little one;
So shake us loose from our believing nothing can be done.
When any child is suffering, Lord, we pray that love will win;
God, may we now obey your word and welcome children in.

Benjamin Perry 12-17-2018

A woman holds a picture of Jakelin during a protest in El Paso, Texas. Dec. 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Twelve days before Christmas, 7-year-old Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin died from dehydration eight hours after she was apprehended by border patrol. While this is a horrible tragedy, the harrowing truth is that that her death (and the deaths of many other migrants) is the logical outcome of our nation’s immigration policy decisions. According to an unclassified government report obtained by ABC News, Maquin’s death appears to have been one of four people who died this crossing the border month, and one of more than 260 this year.

Tobias Winright 11-29-2018

Photo Credit: Shutterstock 

When I was in the police academy, each of us recruits were sprayed point-blank in the face with oleoresin capsicum (OC), a cayenne pepper-based spray. This was done for two reasons: first, this experience would help us to know what it feels like when we use it on someone so that we would use it only when truly necessary; second, in case we ever were sprayed unintentionally, we had to still find our radio or a way to safety. Indeed, I’ll never forget the excruciating burning sensation and excessive mucus that put me out of commission for much of the rest of the day.

Benjamin Perry 11-27-2018

U.S. CBP Response Team officers are seen through wire at the San Ysidro Port of Entry after the land border crossing was temporarily closed in Tijuana, Mexico Nov. 19, 2018. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

On Sunday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents launched tear gas at parents and children seeking asylum. Far from an isolated incident, this is just the latest outrage in ongoing military escalation.

Stephen Mattson 11-27-2018

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

As a religion consisting of millions of voters, venerable institutions, and large organizations, Christianity is often viewed by governments and politicians as a tool to influence and manipulate. Spiritual jargon is used to lobby segments of Christians to support various agendas, often under the pretense of being “Biblical” and “Godly.” This is how faith becomes co-opted to transform into something it was never meant to be: a way to obtain votes, a method for fueling populist rage, or grounds for implementing oppressive social structures.