“If We All Share a Little …”

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“If we all share a little, there will be more than enough.”

--volunteer at the Douglas Welcome Center during an organizational gathering as the community prepared to welcome persons released by Border Patrol.

“Wouldn't releasing so many people a day be seen as a burden to your community?” asked Nathan, a reporter from The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest newspaper, while interviewing Mark on the Frontera de Cristo (FDC) porch in Douglas last week. He had come seeking to gauge community reaction to the Biden Administration’s recent executive action to increase expulsions into Agua Prieta and other Mexican border communities.

Implicit in that question was that vulnerable families, men, women and children who are fleeing extreme violence or poverty or are seeking to be reunited with family in the U.S., are burdens, as opposed to human beings created in the divine image, beloved by God. What the question failed to capture is that there will be an extra burden on the already vulnerable population being returned.

This was just another election year change in U.S. government policy that is guided by fear and fails to create solutions for the safe and orderly transit of persons seeking refuge, opportunity, and/or family reunification in the United States.

In February of 2021, the leadership of the Douglas Border Patrol Station reached out to Frontera de Cristo and asked for help. They said that they were going to begin releasing up to 100 people a day in Douglas, Arizona, and wanted to know if we could provide a place where they could release them instead of just releasing them on the streets of Douglas. We responded that we would provide the best welcome we could but encouraged them to release the people in Tucson where there is an airport, a bus station, and a train station that people could use to get to their family and/or sponsors.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1241" display="pro_horizontal_filmstrip" show_captions="1"]We were told that Border Patrol was not going to “prop up a broken system anymore,” and once large numbers of persons were released in small communities there would not only be angry communities but also “there will be media” that would spread the news of the broken system.

Since December 15, 2020, the Tucson Sector Border Patrol had been transporting people for over four hours from the western part of Arizona and expelling them in the middle of the night into Agua Prieta without telling people where they were being dropped off. The Migrant Resource Center in Agua Prieta responded by increasing its capacity to welcome vulnerable populations and keeping the Center open for 24 hours. The team of volunteers welcomed 30,297 men, women and children from December 2020 to December 2021. In 2022, the team welcomed more than 42,000 men, women and children.

Last month, we had lunch with a delegation from St. Ignatius High School (San Francisco) at the Douglas Welcome Center which, in a six-month period, welcomed 8,500 men, women and children who were released by Border Patrol before the recent executive order.

On June 8, we celebrated the 24th Anniversary of the Exodus Migrant Attention Shelter (CAME), a ministry of the La Sagrada Familia Catholic Parish with whom we have partnered throughout their existence. CAME has provided shelter and food for thousands of people in transit over the past 24 years. Lorenzo, who had fled his community in Chihuahua with his wife and three children because of threats to their lives, and had waited for over two months to petition asylum at the Port of Entry, asked us, “How long do you think it will be until we can apply?” He felt stuck—without the possibility of returning to the beautiful but dangerous forested mountain home and not knowing when or if they could apply for asylum.

On June 30, we celebrated the 18th anniversary of the Migrant Resource Center (MRC), which has welcomed more than 200,000 men, women and children who have been expelled from the U.S. or who are waiting to seek asylum in the U.S.

• 18 years of choosing welcome
• 18 years of choosing to recognize the divine image in persons in transit and resisting the demonization of the most vulnerable among us
• 18 years of choosing to live in faith, hope and love and resisting fear, hate and exclusion
• 18 years of cultivating community across borders
• 18 years trusting that if we all share a little there will be more than enough.

We are super grateful for:

• the “great cloud of witnesses” who have gone before us and lived out the Gospel value of hospitality: Doña Ester, Chayito, Benito, Father Bob, Pastor Chuy and so many others
• the hundreds of volunteers over the years
• the more than 200,000 persons who have sought refuge in the MRC
• the thousands from churches, universities, seminaries and high schools who have come to learn from the community of faith here, encouraging, supporting and praying for us
• the individuals, churches and organizations that “share a little” financially or with “in kind” donations.

In a world where persons migrating are increasingly demonized and scapegoated, may God give us all courage, wisdom, and an abundance of love and compassion to choose welcome!

We are grateful to be a part of a bi-national community that chooses welcome and rejects labeling vulnerable populations as “burdens.” We are grateful to be a part of a community that lives by the words of the Douglas volunteer and the example of people of faith on both sides of the border: “If we all share a little, there will be more than enough.” We are grateful to be a part of a bi-national community that seeks to live out the values of Jesus and rejects the temptation to respond in fear when confronted with the suffering of the world.

We are grateful for you whose prayers, and words of encouragement and support strengthen our community of welcome.

Mark and Miriam