December 2019

Report from Juarez.

Grupo Beta, the social services arm of the Mexican Immigration, is moving through the streets of Juarez in the middle of the night, as temperatures drop, offering to transport refugees to shelters, to get them out of the cold.

Most refuse. They may not trust the shelters. But mostly they worry about two other things. They worry that they will lose a basis for claiming that they need asylum from Mexico if they accept the help from Mexico. And they worry about what Customs and Border Protection is doing, complicating this with refusal to honor the metering list for those that move to shelter. So the families refuse, fearing that they will lose their place in line. The long, slow line that represents the cruelty that our country inflicts on people needing mercy from us.

When I visited Juarez a few weeks ago, near one of the tent encampments, a little girl came over to speak with us. It was not long before she told us of her family’s place in line. She knew her number. And the subfreezing temperatures are not enough to make most who are offered shelter refuse it, because the CBP will simply not say that going to a shelter will not jeopardize their place in that line, the fragile long line that ties them to hope.

Juarez, Mexico