by Brian Young
During the month of July, CPT organized a 3,000-mile Border Witness
Drive from Tucson, Arizona to Brownsville, Texas and then north to
Washington, DC, culminating with legislative advocacy calling for
comprehensive immigration reform. Team members were: John Heid (Winona,
MN), Sarah Shirk (Chicago, IL), Haven Whiteside (Palm Harbor, FL) and
Brian Young (Richmond, IN).
“Walls don’t work.” We heard that theme many times during our travels along the U.S./Mexico border.
Laredo Community College sits in a bend of the Rio Grande near a point
where migrants often cross the border. At a cost of close to $1 million
in Homeland Security funds, the college erected a ten-foot-high wrought
iron fence all the way across the southern edge of its campus. It has
not stopped people from coming.
A teacher who lives in faculty housing just inside the fence told us
that once the fence was built, migrants began prying the bars apart to
get through. The college welded a crosspiece to the bars to hold them
together; people began to use this piece as a step to make it over the
top. Others have tunneled underneath.
At first the teacher thought the fence was a good idea, but he has
since seen its ineffectiveness. People will always find a way over,
under, or through.
“Walls don’t work.” A Cameron County judge speaking in Brownsville,
Texas echoed the refrain. A son of immigrants, Judge Cascos has worked
hard and is committed to his community. He just returned from a visit
to Washington, D.C. where he advocated with federal officials for
alternatives to the wall that would separate the U.S. and Mexico along
the river.
Some “walls” in the borderlands block people more effectively than the
physical structures the U.S. government seeks to erect. Graduating from
high school is like hitting a wall for some people here. Many young
people find their opportunities severely limited because their
undocumented status prevents them from obtaining financial aid for
college. One community leader says, “There are so many talented youths
who want to go to school, but their education is truncated.
Others are walled in by fear of detention by the Border Patrol and
losing everything – family members, community, homes – that they have
worked so hard for over so many years.
Within the hearts of those of us who do not have to live these
borderland realities, there are also walls – walls built of fear and
indifference. May God grant us grace to make it over, under, or through
these walls, that we might see more clearly the faces of our sisters
and brothers in the borderlands and that we might join their struggle
for a humane immigration policy.
