Day 6

Throughout the trip, I have seen many different basketball hoops. Some – like the hoop on which we played with students from California – stand on blue and green courts, vibrant and cheerful. Other hoops sit atop dusty school playgrounds. But some, like the hoops in the dim, weathered gym that has been converted to a shelter for undocumented immigrants, are taped up and broken. The people that sit under them are simply trying to survive – they have no time to play basketball. 

I have begun to realize the immense and unearned privilege that I gained from being born in the United States. By day five, after witnessing the struggles that so many face immigrating to this country, I started to feel helpless. With each presentation, I become more enraged. Yesterday, for example, we spoke to a University of Texas at El Paso professor who explained that, despite the fact that U.S. foreign policy caused much of the turmoil that forces Latin Americans to immigrate, the country refuses to help the Latin Americans at its border. Despite recognizing that my county’s immigration system desperately needs reform, I had no idea how I could use my privilege to help. 

Luckily, today was all about solutions. We began the day by meeting a man said to have “the most important phone of the border.” For 45 years, he has led an organization called Annunciation House that provides temporary housing to immigrants (including undocumented people) and helps them reach sponsors in the United States. The man, each morning, receives a call from ICE informing him of the number of detainees being released that day. Then, he springs into action, coordinating with churches across the country that have agreed to house the refugees. “If we could find 1000 churches each willing to take one bus of 50 refugees a month,” he said, then 50,000 people would be housed. Annunciation House is currently seeking faith communities (churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.) in the Seattle area that are willing to assist refugees. 

Generous communities stepping up addresses the issue of finding housing and transportation for immigrants – just one facet of the United States’ immigration crisis. Later, we spoke to a lawyer from the American Immigration Council who volunteers, pro-bono, to represent asylum seekers. Through an interactive presentation, she prompted us to consider another piece of the immigration system: wealth disparities amongst people seeking asylum. Wealthy people can afford to fly to the United States and hire skilled lawyers, while poorer people are often exploited, forced to endure a treacherous journey. Then – even if they make it to the U.S. alive – they will likely lose their asylum case without the ability to pay for legal assistance. After her talk, the lawyer asked the group to formulate solutions to this injustice. Student responses included creating a network of affordable, government-provided lawyers and hiring more impartial immigration judges (people who did not formerly work for ICE or border patrol like the majority of El Paso’s immigration judges). I left the presentation with a notebook full of solutions, optimistic and more motivated to achieve one of my future goals of becoming an immigration lawyer. 

Now, as I consider the people who rest under the defunct basketball hoops of the shelter, I am filled with sadness that they may be deported back to unimaginable circumstances, but I am also hopeful that, if my peers and I work to implement the solutions that we came up with today, in the future, all people will be able to laugh and play in peace. Samara N