5 minute read
Beyond The Border
Written by Diana Corona and Heather Scurti and Illustrated by Sage Zbinden
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It was 2 a.m. The boy followed a coyote — someone who guides Latin Americans across U.S. borders — into a hole that was dug beneath a chain link fence. On the other side was the southern border of the United States.
Minutes after beginning his journey, he heard a truck coming toward him as he ran past a drainage canal. He threw himself on the ground behind a large pole, hiding, terrified with his eyes closed. Suddenly, he felt a flashlight on his face and was kicked in his back as he heard the words, “Get up!” He was arrested and taken into custody for a few hours before he was released back to Tijuana, where he started.
Despite the first setback, the coyote asked if he’d like to try again. The boy slid under the chain link fence and proceeded to cross the border once more, but this time he succeeded. The boy entered the United States with no expectations or ideas for what the country would bring him.
This unaccompanied, teenage immigrant with no guidance or help was my father, Juan Corona.
Growing up in North-central Mexico, my father lived with seven sisters and an infant brother in a one-bedroom home. He had dreams — dreams such as drinking a bottle of Coke by himself and biting into a full mango without splitting it four ways.
His father, feeling a responsibility as the head of the household, migrated to the States to find a better way of living for his children, and although it helped, it didn’t suffice. Despite the checks his father sent in the mail, some of his siblings were still left with torn up shoes and clothes that no longer fit.
The circumstances of poverty stripped my father of his innocence and it quickly became clear that he would have to pull his own weight to help his family. Three months after turning 15 years old, he decided to migrate to the States in an effort to alleviate the economic struggles his family was facing in Mexico as a result of an increasing cost of living and a lack of adequate wages.
After entering the country, Corona began working in landscaping but was severely underpaid and exploited for his lack of residency. He didn’t know of any resources and never sought an education. Where he was from, school was for the wealthy, so he discarded the idea of an education in the United States.
“If I had the resources some organizations provide for migrant children and teenagers, my life could have been entirely different; maybe I would have had better opportunities,” Corona says.
Urban Strategies is one resource of which Corona says would’ve been helpful during his migration to the United States in 1989.
Founded in 2003, Urban Strategies is a nonprofit that aims to strengthen families and communities by working with local faith-based organizations to provide resources to marginalized people in need.
“When I came to the States, I had to figure out how to pay for rent, food, transportation and other necessities," Corona says. "By the time I paid it all off I was left with near to nothing to send back to Mexico. I realized I wouldn’t be able to help my family as much as I had hoped — but I helped by at least taking care of my own expenses.
“With (organizations like) Urban Strategies, at least these kids don’t have to figure it out by themselves, they can focus on receiving an education instead of immediately finding a living in America.”
Jane Doe*, undocumented immigrant and Southern California resident for the past 20 years, is a stay-at-home mother. She has battled for her citizenship for more than 10 years, hoping for comprehensive immigration reform. She says she crossed the border dreaming of a better life for her children, a life she didn’t have the opportunity to have when she was a child.
“Growing up, I never had the opportunity to go to school; I had to work to support my family. We didn’t have money to pay for my schooling. I think of the kids who crossed the border at a younger age with the dreams I had — to go to school and to be something more,” Doe says. “I wanted to be an accountant. I think of how my life would be if I got to the U.S. at that exact age these kids are, with those dreams. Who would I have been if someone would have just gave me a chance?”
Although Urban Strategies is a social enterprise based out of Washington D.C., it works on a variety of issues across the United States and Latin America, including responding to needs of unaccompanied immigrant children through one of its programs known as Refugio (Spanish for “refuge”).
“Our mission is to connect, resource and equip both churches and community-based organizations that work with populations that experience vulnerability, with focus on children or families that have immigrated to the U.S.,” says Jaclyn Bonner, communication manager for Urban Strategies.
The organization first gained experience providing safe and secure housing to unaccompanied minors in 2014, but the Refugio project was relaunched this year in response to the recent influx of unaccompanied children coming to the United States.
According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, there have been 72,593 unaccompanied immigrant children released to sponsors, whether foster care or families, in the Unites States as of September 2019 — an increase of 37,778 minors from the previous 2018 figure of 34,815.
Refugio was expanded to include transitional foster care where bilingual families are recruited as short-term foster families. The children within the program range in age from 2 to 17 years old and are placed with Urban Strategies for shortterm care — around 45 days on average — while the organization works on reunifying the child with family.
In addition to providing safe housing to unaccompanied immigrant children, the program also provides services such as weekly educational classes, physical and mental services including individual and group counseling, case management, free legal service referrals, recreation and family reunification services.
To successfully carry out the project, Urban Strategies partners with faith- and communitybased organizations throughout communities in California, Texas and Florida.
The Urban Strategies team is trained to provide the best care possible to help children feel safe.
“All of our approaches are trauma-informed to ensure we’re recognizing that there are a lot of layers and a lot of things that the children have experienced to take into account,” Bonner says.
In addition to their goal of providing for the physical and mental well-being of the children in their care, the staff at Urban Strategies says it never forgets the “why” behind each project.
“We believe caring for children of families in the margins is central to the heart of God," Bonner says. "It is hard work but we believe, as followers of Christ, it’s a mandate in Scripture."
