CPTnet
7 July 2007
BORDERLANDS REFLECTION: Liberty... for whom?

[Note: People wishing to follow the progress of Christian Peacemaker Team's
Borderland's Witness drive may do so at
http://cptborderlandswitness.blogspot.com/]

"Y cuando digo: ¡libertad! me dicen: ¡muere!" ("And when I say liberty,
they say to me, death.")--Otto Rene Castillo

The border city of El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua awoke on U.S.
Independence Day to headlines in the newspapers announcing the shooting of a
migrant by a Border Patrol agent. This incident was the second Border
Patrol shooting of an undocumented person in as many weeks, and the fourth
this year in El Paso. The shooting has increased fear and anxiety among
many in this majority Latino community.

Earlier this week, at Annunciation House, a shelter for migrants and
refugees on the fringes of El Paso's El Segundo Barrio, two Border Patrol
agents attempted to enter the facility to apprehend a migrant whose employer
had just dropped him off. The Border Patrol is a regular presence in this
old Latino neighborhood between El Paso's downtown and the bridges over the
Rio Grande to Juarez. Guests of Annunciation House might be detained
anywhere outside the house, but inside they find a sanctuary usually
respected by the Border Patrol. On this particular night, Annunciation
House staff successfully and non-violently resisted the agents' pursuit.
However, the Border Patrol did detain another guest of the shelter who was
leaving the building. He will be deported.

Many of the residents of this part of the border feel they live in one city,
not two. Most families in El Paso, 80% of whose population is of Hispanic
or Latino origin, have close ties that reach across to Juarez. Ten percent
of the students at the University of El Paso come over the border from
Mexico every day to attend classes. For these people, the border is a place
where people come together, rather than something to keep people apart.

This border and the way we police it says much more about our concept of
liberty than it does about the people from the South who seek a better
livelihood here. This latest shooting in El Paso, alongside the mounting
deaths in the desert in Arizona, speaks louder than words. It leaves us
with questions: Liberty for whom? Independence from what? At what cost,
and at whose expense?

To what kind of freedom did you wake up this morning?