Maria and her husband once worked for the El Salvadoran government. A police officer, he balked when he was ordered to arrest young men just because they sported tattoos that might suggest gang involvement. It’s how President Nayib Bukele has made his streets safer — by imprisoning 1.7% of his people, often without proper investigations, hearings, or verdicts.
When authorities learned that Maria’s husband had complained about the absence of due process, they tried to arrest him. By the grace of God, the family wasn’t home. The couple and their two children fled north and applied for asylum in the U.S. Theirs, like thousands of others, is a classic case of political persecution. They had a hearing scheduled on Jan. 21. But as soon as he gained power again, Trump suspended the asylum system.
The Revs. Norma Yanira Guerra, Sun-Hwan Spriggs, and I heard Maria’s story on Friday at a shelter in Tijuana. We were part of a 16-member delegation from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego. Organized by the Rev. Dr. Greg Kimura, rector of St. James’ Episcopal Church- South Pasadena, CA and one of the co-conveners of Episcopal Sacred Resistance – Los Angeles, the trip enabled us to form relationships with non-profit organizations devoted to caring for people like Maria and her family such as Nest Global, Mama2Mama, and Comunidad de Luz, the San Diego diocese’s new shelter for women and children.
Maria and her family are caught in injustice’s merciless vice. Her face communicates the stress of uncertainty and fear. They obviously can’t go home. And it’s hard to imagine their getting a sympathetic hearing from Trump’s government. He emulates Bukele’s tactics, having already illegally deported U.S. residents to Salvadoran prisons for what he takes to be the significance of their tattoos. Now he wants to send Bukele U.S. citizens he doesn’t like.
Everyone knows the asylum system needed reform. We can have common sense, humanity, and an absence of chaos without open borders. But Trump stymied bipartisan immigration reform so he and Vance could ride their lies about immigrant workers to power. This is not a reforming administration. This is an administration that acts as though U.S. voters have given it permission to be cruel.
One of Trump’s goals was for fewer people in Maria’s position to petition for asylum. He is succeeding. Several of the nonprofits cluster around Iglesia Embajadores de Jesus, one of Tijuana’s largest migrant shelters, caring for refugees from Central America and Haiti. Its population is 980, down from a high of 1,500. While it may be that fewer migrants are coming to Tijuana, tens of thousands remain in the city, frozen between dangerous or deadly conditions at home and our deadly indifference.
As we toured the massive, beautifully maintained facility, we saw dozens of eyes peering at us from bunkbeds, usually children huddled over a video game, just like our children and grandchildren, once we open our eyes and see. From our hosts, the word we heard more than any other was trauma, especially as experienced by the little ones. And what we experienced all day was the devotion of non-profit and church workers who refuse to give up on Tijuana’s refugees, even though the politicians have.
Nest Tijuana, one of Nest Global’s four sites, has beautifully appointed classrooms for students aged 3-10. Director Vanessa Esquivel, a lifelong Tijuana resident, a communications expert turned educator, told us that Nest’s mission statement is to help children understand that they deserve to be listened to, they are valuable, and they deserve nice things in school.
Cayla Willingham, cofounder of Mama2Mama, who began her nonprofit career caring for Iraqi mothers during wartime, noticed during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border that refugee mothers had no access to pre- and post-natal care. The program includes group therapy to help parents understand they’re not alone, nutrition and lactation clinics, business classes, and (for the sheer comfort and joy of it) fingernail care.
Everyone with love in their hearts finds these settings irresistible. Our guide at Iglesia Embajadores was a Swiss missionary who came two and a half years ago on a visit like ours and basically never went home. Her colleagues say she’s indispensable. Our co-leader for the day was Robert Vivar, whom the Rt. Rev. Susan Brown Snook called two years ago as San Diego’s migration missioner. Robert has made a ministry of service to others from half a lifetime’s ups and downs with the U.S.’s broken immigration system.
Bishop Snook and he collaborated on Comunidad de Luz, a 60-bed shelter on the verge of opening its doors. When we stopped by, staff and volunteers were busy getting ready. Comunidad’s quarters were freed up when its owner, a giant-hearted San Diego Episcopalian named Tony Ralphs (yes, that Ralphs), moved the orphanage he supports, Casa Hogar de Los Ninos, into larger quarters next door. Casa’s top floor has a beautiful chapel as well as guest rooms and a kitchen for pilgrims, which got me thinking about the possibility of a diocesan pilgrimage to Tijuana to learn Spanish, visit religious sites, and participate in the work of our new friends, so inspiringly devoted to the dignity of every human being in their nonprofit work.
Our last stop was the Mexican side of the border wall. Norma presided at noonday prayer, and I offered a brief reflection about my conjoining vocations. It was actually Pat Nixon, then the first lady, spouse of my former boss, who dedicated Friendship Park in 1971. When she arrived and saw the barbed wire fence, she told the Secret Service to take it down so Mexican participants in the ceremony could step into the U.S. and she into Mexico. She said she hoped that one day, we wouldn’t need a fence. She planted a tree on the U.S. side in the name of the flowering of border fraternity.
U.S. officials have long since buried Mrs. Nixon’s tree under thousands of tons of concrete and metal, all the better to keep people out. We would have to look far and wide for a presidential artifact that had been treated with such contempt. We’re a rich country that likes to pretend we’re poor and play the victim. So we felt we needed a no-man’s land 150 feet wide. But Maria and her family are not rapists and thieves. They’re not mules for fentanyl. They just want to be safe and breathe free. Mr. Trump, listen to what Mrs. Nixon said. Tear down this wall.
