Brownsville, Texas: While traveling with Witness at the Border’s Journey for Justice caravan along the U.S.-Mexico border I had the pleasure of talking to Maria Cordero one of the human and migrant activists of that city. The first event of the Journey was held on December 2 at Xeriscape Park in Brownsville, where they used a projector to display slogans such as ‘No More Deaths’ and ‘Restore Asylum Now!’ on the structure above the international border crossing. Below is a summary of her perspective about the work Witness at the Border is doing.
It seems to me that any effort that is made at the national or local level to support the immigrant community and to protest the bad policies that the government has been implementing is a welcome effort for those who live on the border.
We know that the people who are migrating right now are doing it to save their physical safety, emotional safety, to protect their children; they are also fleeing terrible things, and that criminalization is an excuse that the U.S. government has put in the narrative so that people like us who live in the United States fall into the false narrative and do not welcome them. However, organizations like Witness at the Border and, many many organizations know that this narrative is totally false.
The effort that Witness at the Border is making is fabulous. Here at the border we have been dealing with so many situations that sometimes coming to a public event its a little bit exhausting. The strong attacks that we as a border community have to deal with on a daily basis, the militarization, the state’s involvement in federal issues has, you might say, threatened our daily lives. So sometimes we think that the community is not supportive, but it is. The border community is very resilient. It is not for lack of empathy that sometimes we have to go to our families, that we have to revitalize ourselves emotionally and come back the next day and get ahead. We volunteer to give direct humanitarian aid, a coat, a snack to the people who are being processed in the horrible conditions imposed by the border patrol and immigration.
In Brownsville, we have some agencies that have changed their mission a little bit, they were focused on homeless people, and now they are trying within their means to support them by giving humanitarian aid such as hot meals and assistance to buy their tickets for family reunification. Others can give about 30 days of shelter for people who qualify for those services. Still others are individuals who have come together to help.
We don’t have a structure to help us facilitate our work, but we have an excellent availability of people in the community to support and give humanitarian help. Sometimes they just go to the bus station before the migrants go to their meeting place with their family at their destination and give them a smile, a hug, and say welcome.
We want to show them that we have not lost our humanity even though the government implements abusive policies. We try to show our humanity and warmth to the people coming to this country.
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