5/3/21

By Josh Rubin

Do you want to know the difference between a shelter and a prison?

It isn’t much of a riddle. A shelter is a place that you need to be. Even if there is sometimes not much food. And the conditions may be rough. It is better than what you might face outside the shelter.

You may be there, like the people in Juarez I visited yesterday, because you fled poverty and hunger and violence. And you traveled thousands of miles with your children to find hope across a border that exists only to deny you that hope.

Because when you crossed, you were arrested and sent back. Everyone I spoke to yesterday knew what Title 42 is. It is what sent them back, some of them to take shelter in a place that finds it hard to feed its own population. But still there are shelters. There are people rationing food and blankets and medicine to them.

And I watched the sheltered mothers and fathers mop floors and scrub and hang clothing in sinks outside, near the portable bathrooms, hanging them out to dry in the desert wind and sun. Small children were everywhere, laughing, crying, having their runny noses wiped.

People tried their luck with me, an abashed visitor. They asked if I knew how to get them across. Or if I could help them find another place to live, because their limited time was running out, and they didn’t know where to go next. They told me why they fled their homes. They asked for help I didn’t know how to give them.

My country is pushing these people out, and they have to decide. Send their children? Wait?

Climb the smallest hill and you can see the skyline of the city across the fetid stream that draws the line between countries. And somewhere, nearer the northern horizon, if you know where to look, is that other thing. A prison for children of the diaspora. Who want desperately to leave, to go to their families. There is enough food inside the tents, set up to restrain these children. But they want to leave, and they can’t get by the guards and fences on the largest military base in the country.

Simple, isn’t it? You can leave a shelter. The doors are open. A prison may feed and clothe you, but it doesn’t let you go.