Shura Wallin, co-founder of the Green Valley / Sahuarita Samaritans, keeps asking the
same question. "How many people do you know would want to leave their family? Their home? Everything that is familiar? Very few, right? So why are people risking their lives to leave everything they love and come to the US?"
Shura has witnessed the outward and visible answers to that question. She has never recovered from the hug she received from an asylum seeker when she arrived at a shelter with food and supplies. His eye had been gouged out and both of his hands cut off by a cartel because he refused to carry their drugs, but he still embraced Shura in a strong, grateful embrace.
Many people who work and volunteer at the border said there seem to be fewer people trying to cross into the US for work or to be with family. The majority of crossings these days (legal and illegal) seem to be asylum seekers, fleeing terrible situations at home. And "home" is more often Central America (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) than Mexico. Of course a symbol of this are the migrant caravans. Instead of being rapists and murderers, they are desperately trying to escape rapists and murderers; those in their home countries and those along the journey to asylum. That's why they band together, to protect each other from the drug cartels and their coyotes (human smugglers) who want to use immigrants to move their drugs across borders - and respond violently when they are thwarted.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, when someone arrives (or is detained) at the US border and asks for asylum, they are assigned a number, like in a deli. They then wait for their number to be called. If they were detained for crossing the border illegally, they will wait in a detention center - a jail. Otherwise they will hope for a stay in a shelter. If there is no shelter available they will sleep on the streets.
Waiting in the detention center is particularly tricky, as I saw at Operation Streamline. Individuals have to ask for asylum at the right time, to the right person. If they miss their opportunity they might get deported, and it will be much harder for them to seek asylum with that on their record. While they wait, it is reported there is a lot of unofficial pressure: "You don't have a case, you don't want to keep waiting here, why don't we just send you home?" Which, again, would make a future asylum claim much more difficult. But people are alone, scared, dealing with language barriers and a foreign legal system. They give up.
I think it's better for those in shelters. There they have other asylum seekers to lean on, people to remind them of the process, and small bits of normalcy like preparing a meal. But still these are people who have fled horrible circumstances, and they are so fearful for their future. I can't imagine the stress.
When an asylum seeker's number is called, they meet with an Asylum Officer for a credible fear interview. This interview is critical; the officer is determining if the circumstances in the individual's life might make them eligible for asylum in the US. But the interview is only the first step. If the officer determines the individual might qualify for asylum, that is the beginning of the long process of actually applying for asylum in the US, a process that easily takes two years. During at least part of that time, the individual cannot legally work in the US - if they are staying with family or friends, this is of course a huge burden. At UCCB, we have supported the work of the LGBTQ Asylum Task Force at Hadwen Park Church, which helps with housing and resources for people who have been persecuted in their home country due to their sexual identity or orientation. Sometimes family and friends in the US won't help these folks, making it even harder to survive during the asylum application process.
As you've seen in the news, rules governing the asylum process are in a state of incredible flux. Just a few examples:
- Last year former Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared fleeing domestic violence would no longer be considered a valid reason for seeking asylum; a federal court overruled him.
- Unaccompanied minors seeking asylum have long been considered a priority, but now may be banned from seeking asylum if they try to cross illegally.
- Just last week President Trump's administration began sending people in the asylum process to Mexico. Most of these people are from Central America - not Mexico - and they have passed their credible fear interview. This means a US Asylum Officer believes if the person's claims are true, and the officer believes there is some reason to think they are, the person's life would be in danger in their home country. But because of the incredibly slow process in the US asylum courts, their claims cannot be heard for months or years. Meanwhile, they must wait in Mexico, where they probably know no one and have no resources, rather than the US, the country where they are seeking asylum and hope to live.
I think of the shelters I saw and heard about in Mexico, so focused on supporting people until they could get to their credible fear interviews. I was struck that when we asked staff and volunteers about what happened after those interviews, it was almost like they didn't even want to talk about it; their job was to get people to the interviews, others would help on the other side. Now people who have passed those interviews will be returning to Mexico. To the same shelters? Where will new people go? How will the shelters support people for months and years rather than days and weeks?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, guarantees the right to seek asylum in other countries. It doesn't guarantee a sane process.
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