Clergy Report of the Delegation to the Border with Mexico

Reflections by the Reverend Elizabeth Gibbs-Zehender, Minister Member of the Presbytery of the Pacific

I joined Matthew 25 Co-Chairs Pastors Ada & Melvin Valiente and Prof. Robert & Erica Chao Romero on the Matthew 25 sponsored delegation to encounter some of the people who had been traveling with the Caravan that began in Honduras. We wanted to discover how we can best accompany them.
We arrived at the Chaparral crossing on the Mexico side of the boarder Monday morning. The day before we came, a group of demonstrators had acted violently toward the Caravaners. Unsure of what type of social unrest we might find we wore stoles and clergy collars.

Asylum 101: The trip proved to be a crash course in immigration law. I have a steep learning curve regarding the US immigration policies. It turns out that seeking asylum is an entirely legal endeavor. Every year people come to the United States seeking protection because they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. If someone is eligible for asylum they may be permitted to remain in the United States (Dept. of Homeland Security website) You can find out more about the process for yourself on the government’s web page. For visual learners (like me), here is a flow chart of the process.

Currently, people who are seeking asylum in the US at the Tijuana port of entry can’t go directly to the actual US boarder. Instead they have to
“wait their turn”, which means that they have to put their name on a list that is managed by a group of volunteer asylum seekers at a table under a portable blue shade tent on the plaza beside the boarder crossing. Click HERE to continue reading…