Whenever I have the opportunity to visit face to face with undocumented people and their families, I come away with some new insight or perspective or just simply fuller stories than I can get through online communication. I get a better feel for what it means to have no legal status in the country where you live.
“I just got back from several days in Georgia and environs spending time in homes rather than online or in arranged visits. I brought Christmas cookies as gifts.
Big thanks to the man who stayed up all night making posole and cerdo con cactus and all the fixings! Big thanks, also, to another man who opened his warm home to me. And to the kids who told me their stories. And to the women married to these men who helped me to understand the system better.
A few takeaways.
At two homes, I heard this: that Border Patrol agents are taking cuts from coyotes (human smugglers) who allow them unimpeded passage across the border. After then, of course, the coyotes and their parties are on their own. With the increased militarization of the border which has been ongoing during every administration, Republican or Democratic, since the early 1990s, fees have steadily increased, too. When I first went to the border in 2006, the going fee was about $1,000-$1,500 dollars per person to cross from northern Mexico. Of course, it was much higher for those coming from El Salvador or other places in Central America.
Now, the fees are at a minimum of $5000 [$8000 in 2023]. So taking a cut makes sense and makes us even more inline with 3rd world countries where negotiations with security agents are par for the course.
There has been some discussion of recent days among advocates that the coyotes should be apprehended and their services suspended. So, I brought that up. I learned that one of the families has used the same coyote to bring multiple family members over. They used trusted coyotes who have built up trust among the people who use them. Those coyotes operate on a basis of 1/2 the smuggling fee up front; the other 1/2 when the person is safely with their families.
Handing off the smuggled person and making the money exchange can be quite frightening. It is done surreptitiously and exposes everyone involved to risk.
One of the young men told me this story: he is b-racial, his father being black, his mother white. His mother is divorced from his father; an undocumented man is his step father. Not too long ago, the family brought over, legally, his step father's biological son who is now 12. The son has had no opportunity to learn much English. On top of his having lived in Mexico and not knowing much English, he is hearing impaired.
The young man was driving a few weeks ago, with his young step brother in the passenger's seat, when a truck in front of him stopped very suddenly. He threw on his brakes yet drove up under the truck nonetheless. It is a wonder they both weren't killed. A couple of police officers arrived. One of the officers immediately lit into both the young man and his12 year old step brother, throwing the "f" word around several times, and acting belligerently. The front grill had been torn off the car. The officer picked it up and broke it over his knee. He yelled at the child to speak English. (I hope I'm getting the details right.) Needless to say, it is very difficult when undocumented people are part of your family to want any confrontation with the police.
The young man has an astounding voice. He writes his own material. He sang for me. I was truly amazed. I don't know much about music, but I could not detect a single pitch problem. A little nerves maybe, but no musical problems.
This particular family has to deal with racism on two fronts—racism against the black or black/white biracial members of the family and against the Hispanic members of the family. One child, the black one, wants to tell stories of being called the "n" word at school and use the language he heard. Another child, who is white/Latino and on the autism spectrum, can't understand why his brother would use language he knows is not acceptable. This is a lot to navigate. Correction: make that racism on three front: from the white families of the white women who hold it against them for marrying outside their race.
Another woman told me about having her own husband, whom she loved dearly, deported. He had gotten involved with meth up there in the hills and could seem to find no way out. She thought his only hope at life was to return to Mexico and the only way for that to happen was forcibly. By the grace of God, and through prayer, he has been set free of his meth dependency and is clean and sober.
She finds that even her own family, some of her grown children, are so influenced by the messaging they are hearing about illegal immigrants they believe in “Trump's wall”. The other children, who are not Trump supporters, have a hard time accepting the fact that Obama was the Deporter in Chief or that he, too, held children in cages. Some conversations you just have to try to avoid.
She has friends who have property along the Rio Grande who cannot access their own boat house because of the wall that has already been built there. Call it something else if you want to—call it the fence. But it runs across their back yard. They can sit in their house and surveil the river. No migrants. Only Border Patrol officers.
She lives in Mexico with her deported husband, but she works in the US. She has to pay a toll each day she works to go and come. A toll for a bridge that has long since been paid for.”
Thinking of these sweet friends and all whose lives are constantly threatened by walls, Border Patrol, ICE, and deportation.