Borderlands: Stories from an El Paso Shelter

by Deb Hansen

Winner of a 2025 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association!

What’s really happening at the U.S./Mexico border?

Borderlands is the story of the courageous people who risk everything for the safety and well-being of themselves and their families, and the people of El Paso who accompany them. While the media saturate the news with antagonism and images of violence, the volunteers at Annunciation House and other organizations provide hospitality and care for those who leave their homes behind at great personal cost. Rather than seeing the stranger as enemy, they meet their guests as relatable, complex human beings like themselves.

Deb Hansen is a descendant of European immigrants, an Interfaith chaplain, and a spiritual companion who travelled to El Paso to volunteer at Annunciation House. Borderlands takes us along on her journey, introducing us to the people she met and came to love.

Migration is both a natural and an unnatural phenomenon. Borderlands reveals why people leave their homes, culture, and language behind, as well as insight on how wealthy countries inflict harm and contribute to conditions that fuel migration by destabilizing economies, governments, and relationships.

Borderlands is heartbreaking, inspiring, and life-changing. Along the way, readers might even hear echoes of the stories and journeys of their own ancestors. Read Borderlands today and find out about the people rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something in the spirit of solidarity.

398 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 8, 2024

Reviews

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was engrossed in the book and loved the unintrusive way the author pondered aloud about things she observed, thus encouraging the reader to wonder along with her. She turned these stories into opportunities for reflection and inner change. I was so thankful to find my perspectives enlarging as I stepped into the shoes of those on the borderlands. This author and this book are proof that every story has many sides and it would do us good to listen to all of them.

[Mary Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Borderlands: Stories from an El Paso Shelter takes you on a journey with the author, Deb Hansen, where she participated in mutual aid within a group of guest houses for people passing through, over a period from 2019 to 2023. You will get to know other volunteers, guests, and the variety of circumstances that bring people together at the sister cities of El Paso, TX, and Juarez, Mexico. Through the tasks of caring for daily needs, health needs, social needs, transportation, chores, and other logistics, mundane and transitional, you will get a flavor of community building and what compassion looks like. At the same time, the larger questions of borders, causes of migration, roots in history, power systems, and climate change, all intersect. The final chapter pulls it all together. So be sure to read all the way through, and you may want to read that last chapter a few more times. Thank you, Deb, for sharing your experience with us.

[Irene Kazmers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many talk the talk. Deb Hansen walks the walk of humanitarianism and environmental advocacy. In this beautifully, lyrically crafted book, she brings us right into the experience of her hands-on, on the ground activism. Despite the barrage of unspeakable stories and struggles, the common thread of the Golden Rule that she manages to cling to, uplifts and inspires throughout.
This book is a great read, informative, and highly recommended.

[Margaret Boehm · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a gentle, low key, retelling of several summers of work at the borderlands that El Paso, Texas has become, Deb Hansen has produced a work that conveys her unforgettable experiences of living and working with those who cross our southern border and legally continue into the US. She simply reports the daily activities of making sure there is food, medical care, clean sheets, and human community for people whose lives are precarious. I was deeply touched and inspired by her writing.

[Steven E · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing journal elegantly written by one who was actually there, doing the work. An important read to help understand the real situation at our borders, the people giving aid, and the humanization of those passing through.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been thinking a lot about this book. I'm glad I read it, but I can't say I enjoyed it as such. It tells of so much heartbreak and so many terrible decisions by people in power. The happy moments are so touching but even these are tinged with suffering. I hope the book finds the audience it deserves.