United States

This shelter, sitting on the Mexican side of the border wall at the U.S. port of entry, is the last stop for people who have come to Agua Prieta, Sonora, to seek asylum in the US.  The campamento—or camp—is the end of a weeks’-long, or even months’-long journey.  Now these people live at the shelter, waiting for their turn to request asylum.  That wait took seven to ten days last summer but has now stretched to twice that long as the U.S. customs officials accept fewer and fewer people.  In addition, because of pressure from the Mexican authorities, people will soon no longer be able to sleep in the camp.

Pray for all those detained in concentration camps at the U.S./Mexico Border and in other U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Facilities.  Give thanks for those who are trying to shine a light on the racist and misogynistic Border Patrol culture that is threatening the lives and the health of the children, women and men held in these camps.  Inspire people on the outside to find creative ways to confront and overturn this evil, before it turns into something worse.

Walls take many forms. They may be words, glances, or actions that distance us from others, or physical structures that protect us from the weather or the vulnerable from further harm.  But the walls we saw at the Arizona/Mexico border, on the Christian Peacemaker Teams borderlands delegation, were made of concrete, metal, or stone, or even from threats, meant to deprive people of their rights or shut out the tired, the poor, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—as the message on the Statue of Liberty says at a port of entry in the Eastern United States.

Severed families and short attention spans   It’s just wrong… separating children from their family.  It’s just wrong… abusing the most vulnerable to make a political point, or to further a hateful policy.