Status Updates From The Asylum Seekers: A Chron...

“That self-proclaimed Christians in the United States supported our policies at the border made a mockery of the story of the birth of Jesus himself, and was simply grotesque. There was no theological stance […] that could possibly uphold or excuse this position. […] supporting our nation’s immigration policies while claiming to be a Christian is a fiction and a lie.”

“I mean, if Paulina and Víctor an Martín and all the others who are giving what they have for the sake of another are standing in place of Jesus, as they so visibly and indisputably are, where is it, exactly, that the rest of us are standing?”

“Go back home,” she said. “What else can I do?”

“Will you be safe there?”

“No,” she said flatly, entirely matter of fact. “First my oldest, then my next, and one day the little one, too, will have to choose: join the cartel or be shot.”

“No matter the depth of horror, or despair, or fear, or grief that swept through the street as regularly as day turned to night, the kids continued to- what is the word? Resist. Yes. They continued to resist in the most powerful way imaginable: with joy and laughter and love.

“It was hard to believe but true nonetheless: a nine-year-old boy who couldn’t hear or speak and his worn-out, too-soon-aged mother got the better of the US immigration system and forced our country to uphold our own laws. This was gospel topsy-turviness at its very, very best…” I mean isn’t that God?

Off topic but one of my favorite things is hearing descriptions of the desert from people who don’t live here. I try to look through their eyes every time I go outside: yeah, the landscape IS technicolor. And, yes, the open desert IS actually magnificent and arresting. Romanticize your life!! This is someone’s dream!!

At first, you wonder why this mother would go back if it isn’t safe for them. Don’t you want your children to be safe? But what is safe, if not in the arms of their own mother? How do you cross the bridge knowing your children will be ripped from you and sent hundreds of miles away? Will you see them again? How do you know if that IS safe? If that IS right? What right do I have to even contemplate this? I am sick

“This was just how things were. Beauty and horror and fear and laughter and despair and hope were all exposed out there on the street, spinning around each other like an overpacked load of colors in a dryer so that from one minute to the next- one second to the next- there was never any telling which would become visible.”

Small, real things

EIGHTY. PERCENT.

“But the order and the patience and the ability to endure […] didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere. I felt my American-ness more and more each day. It wanted to scream. I wanted to scream.”

“They’d done this, I’d learned, in order to prevent asylum seekers from stepping onto US soil. Requests for asylum from within the country had to be processed immediately. By keeping asylum seekers on the other side of the border, then, even by a couple of inches, officials were able to evade asylum laws and keep people out…”