Living Out Faith in the War Zone of the Borderlands

LIVING OUT FAITH IN THE WAR ZONE OF THE BORDERLANDS 26

The blood-stained sidewalk where 16-year-old José Antonio was killed by US Border Patrol agents. (Photo by Murphy Woodhouse)

WHAT WOULD TRUE SECURITY AT OUR BORDERS LOOK LIKE?

BY MARYADA VALLET

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“Playing at the [border] should not be the death penalty” reads a sign at a vigil held for José Antonio.

(Photo by Murphy Woodhouse)

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nd Jesus said, “Let there be double and triple fencing...”

It is more than absurd to put those words in Jesus’ mouth. While Jesus was never recorded as saying anything about border walls directly, his ministry exemplified crossing nearly every imaginable border—social, political, and religious—of his time.

It is also ludicrous for me, as someone who grew up in Arizona and has worked as a humanitarian on the Mexico-Southern US border for eight years, to hear those words. It is hard to imagine even more fortifications added to this heavily militarized region. The walls are both a tremendous waste of money and a primary cause of increasing death of migrants as they seek to go over, under, and around them. The death rate of migrants rose 27 percent between 2011 and 2012 as people were funneled to ever more remote and dangerous crossing points.1 The walls clearly function as a symbol, employed for political persuasion, however impractical and disgraceful they are for border communities.

Locally it is understood that neither the walls nor the number of boots on the ground actually deter most immigrants. Even Department of Homeland Security Secretary (and former Arizona Governor) Janet Napolitano has expressed doubt. “You show me a 50-foot wall,” she said, “and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border. That’s the way the border works.”2 The persistence in crossing has mostly been associated with economic push and pull factors, but is currently related to the strong ties that immigrants have to the US. A recent study conducted by the University of Arizona in migrant shelters on the Mexican side of the border found that half of deported migrants have a family member who is a US citizen. Further, migrants who consider the United States their home are more likely to return after deportation, with 70 percent planning to cross again in the future.3 This idea of double and triple fencing belongs to the same US congressmen who drafted the long-awaited comprehensive immigration reform legislation.4 Apart from more walls, the legislation features increased enforcement measures at the southern border. These measures include more agents,

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MORE OF THE SAME BORDER POLICY THAT HAS ENVELOPED THE REGION FOR NEARLY TWO DECADES ACTUALLY MEANS MORE INSECURITY. National Guard troops, checkpoints, drones, permission to overrun protected federal lands, and increased prosecutions and incarceration for unauthorized entry.

Hyperactive border security has been deemed politically necessary—even prioritized—in debates over this long overdue overhaul of the immigration system. Essentially it is more of the same. It is unimaginative and destructive. As border communities, we know that more of the same border policy that has enveloped the region for nearly two decades actually means more insecurity.

The war zone at home To live in the US-Mexico border region under the current border policy can be likened to living in a low-grade war zone. Humanitarian volunteers who have come from around the country to work in southern Arizona have been shocked to experience this atmosphere of war on US soil. This “Constitutionfree zone”5 is characterized by the daily and insidious presence of militarystyle equipment, weapons, agents, and, worst of all, the war mindset. For to have a war, there must be an enemy.

But who is the enemy that justifies this heavy militarization of communities and public lands? We are told that border security protects us from terrorists and cartels. Fueled by public fear and unfamiliarity with border realities, our government has created an enemy to justify the unprecedented growth of military-style enforcement within our country. The original border policy from 1993, called the “policy of deterrence,” has not changed course. It is primarily aimed toward keeping out poor Latin Americans.6 Even the proposed border-security legislation clearly says that “high-risk” regions of the border simply mean more migrants are crossing and have little to do with actual security threats.7 All the drones, the hidden sensors, the thousands of agents armed with hollow-point bullets (prohibited by international law for use in war)8, and the walls that cost millions per mile—they’re meant to keep out poor people— people who are the refugees of the unfair global economy and increasingly of changing climate patterns. Such is the policy of deterrence, and it is replicated in rich countries around the world. The goal behind fortifying borders is to protect the exorbitant wealth that we’ve accumulated from the Global South, as we use 80 percent of the world’s resources and have to keep the disgruntled and poor masses of the world at bay.9 But at what cost is this done?

The past two decades of border militarization have caused record rates of human suffering, environmental degradation, and insecurity in the region.

These impacts of border enforcement are rarely discussed by policy makers.

Some of these devastating effects have included: • More than 6,000 known deaths of migrants crossing the desert: These deaths have mostly occurred since the walls were erected, and countless more will never be discovered.10 • Environmental degradation of national and protected lands: The border region hosts multiple national forests, wilderness refuges, and endangered species that have suffered from the walls and heavy enforcement.11 • Intensified human trafficking: With few legal avenues to work or join family in the United States, the profit from smuggling and extorting people has risen. [See “Wanted, Abolitionists to Work for Immigration Reform” on the ESA blog.]12 • Native peoples and lands are divided and disrespected: The Tohono O’odham reside in the Sonoran Desert that spans the US-Mexico border, and the wall now divides this community.13 • Checkpoints established in border communities promote racial profiling: Immigration checkpoints are permitted within 100 miles of the border, and they are infamous for racial profiling and the harassment of people of color.14 • Increased criminalization of the act of migration: Border crossing in a location other than an official port of entry used to be a civil violation, but through the expansion of Operation Streamline (2005-2008), increasing numbers of apprehended immigrants now receive criminal charges and mandatory jail-time for entry and reentry.15 • Increased criminalization of humanitarian workers: More than a dozen humanitarian volunteers have been cited and even prosecuted for providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to migrants. All cases have been either dropped or won thus far.16 • Abuse and killing by Border Patrol with no accountability. Academics, human rights advocates, and Jesuits have released reports demonstrating the systematic and alarming levels of abuse under Border Patrol custody.17 NMD volunteer caring for the blistered feet of a migrant walking through the treacherous desert of southern Arizona. (Photo by Stefano Milano)

NMD volunteers walk the migrant trails of the Sonoran Desert in order to provide basic assistance to people in distress. (Photo by Stefano Milano)

I will share just one severe and recent example of the impact of border security. On the evening of October 10, 2012, 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodriguez was walking down the street in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico— the same street that I myself have walked hundreds of times, which runs parallel to the border wall. On that night, Border Patrol agents opened fire through the paneled border wall and hit the boy 11 times from behind.18 His crime? Being a young man walking down the street in Mexico, caught in the crossfire of a low-grade war zone. As concerned community members, church leaders, and activists, we held vigil at the site of Jose Antonio’s death alongside his family members.

On the six-month anniversary we called upon the US government to investigate and provide information about the incident. The family has been virtually ignored as they continue to ask, “Where is the justice?” Border communities recommend community-based oversight and monitoring mechanisms to hold those in power accountable for what is done in the name of homeland security.

AS I WASHED AND BANDAGED WOUNDED FEET AND LISTENED TO THEIR STORIES, I FOUND DEEPER CONNECTION WITH THE VERY REAL LIFE FORCES OF FAITH AND COURAGE, PASSED ON TO ME BY MY MIGRANT BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

Called to be a desert wanderer In 2005 I felt called to become a desert wanderer and joined the faith-based humanitarian group No More Deaths (NMD). I joined other humanitarian volunteers in the humanitarian aid camp known as the Ark of the Covenant to stop the deaths of migrants crossing the desert of southern Arizona.

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When I first responded to this call, I was struck by the biblical sacredness of the desert as a place that propelled Jesus and many of the prophets into action and advocacy for justice. The desert is a place to encounter the divine in an extreme way, a place of both intense beauty and suffering. At first I sympathized with the migrant on this difficult journey, for sympathy is how I learned (through short-term mission trips) to respond to uncomfortable disparity. But it wasn’t long before I began to understand solidarity more deeply, realizing that our lives are interconnected. Solidarity is the recognition that my liberation (spiritual and physical) is bound to the liberation of my neighbors who are crushed by the wheels of oppression. Indeed, I became the one touched and liberated in this desert place as I washed and bandaged wounded feet and listened to their stories. I found deep connection with the very real life forces of faith and courage, passed on to me by my migrant brothers and sisters.

NMD is an organization of individuals of faith and conscience working to end the increasing death toll and suffering of migrants crossing the ArizonaMexico border. NMD has no salaried staff or board of directors; we have trained thousands of volunteers from around the world to help by providing direct humanitarian aid. We are a grassroots movement based on the principle that when confronted with the face of suffering as a result of deadly policy, we must act. Particularly as people of faith, we can do no other.

It’s simply called civil initiative. What started for me as a summer of desert wandering has become my life journey and passion, to cross borders and to find the heart of God there.

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

Real security and divine social transformation come through breaking down those walls—with acknowledgement of the hostility and abuse that have occurred and recognition of the fear and injustice that have existed. Then the borderlands may be transformed into a place where faith, hope, and love can coexist between neighbors and before God. I think most Christians can agree that Jesus’ ministry and vision for the transformative kingdom of God would not include walls, semi-automatic weapons, and detention centers. When we catch ourselves, and others, advocating for more border security based on politics or fear, we must advocate a new vision.

Just as Jesus would not advocate for more walls and punitive enforce-

Faith and real security When it comes to social transformation, I’ve noticed that we Christians often expect no more than the status quo from our church leaders, our communities, and even from ourselves. Social transformation is the hard work of expanding the will of God on earth as it is in heaven. If we fasted and prayed together for a healed border, what would God put in our hearts? Where does true security come from, and how is it modeled through you and me? I am convinced that as long as border security How many more deaths? A shrine at the NMD humanitarian aid and walls are socially accepted, the policymakcamp remembering those who have died crossing the desert. ers won’t go against it. We have to start by (Photo by Stefano Milano) shifting the war zone mentality and culture of fear in our communities, in places far from the border, and in our own hearts. ment against our neighbors or poor communities, neither should we. Let’s Scriptures teach us that fear or worry inhibits our ability to welcome build a movement that transforms the spirit of our communities and transGod’s presence in our lives. The Psalms provide the reminder that “The LORD forms borders to be truly and deeply secure. It is time we let our imaginations is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” (27:1). When we run wild in the borderlands! fear, we erect walls or strongholds in our hearts, which block us from the transformative love of Jesus. We also have walls in our minds, creating divi(Editor’s note: You’ll find the endnotes for this article at PRISMmagazine.org/endnotes.) sions in our communities and between neighbors. Grounded in fear—which is the opposite of faith—these walls hinder us from following the greatest Maryada Vallet stays busy as a humanitarian, health professional, and evancommandment: to love God and love neighbor. The longer the walls exist, the gelical agitator on the border. For more on border humanitarian work, go more hostility and hopelessness take root. Living our faith can promote the to NoMoreDeaths.org. kind of radical and countercultural unity described in Ephesians 2:14-16:

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PEACE WITH GOD, PEACE ON EARTH FORMER-DETAINEES-TURNEDACTIVISTS FIGHT FOR JUST IMMIGRATION LAWS

BY JESSE JAMES DECONTO

Pastor Ruben Garcia’s neighbor spent the holiday season last year apart from his wife and five kids. A construction worker from the Mexican state of Guerrero, the man had been stopped and arrested for driving without a license where he lived in Raleigh, N.C. He spent two months in jail, and then the federal government deported him back to Mexico.

This is a typical experience in Hispanic communities all over the United States, but Garcia and his church, Iglesia del Buen Pastor, were highly motivated to act on that neighbor’s behalf, because they had only recently been in that man’s shoes. Less than three years ago, 46 members of the church, including 19 children, were detained overnight in Louisiana as they returned to their homes in Raleigh from their denomination’s annual Santa Cena (Holy Supper) retreat during Holy Week in Houston, Tex. Six adults were held and deported, and 21 others received removal orders, part of a 30 percent hike in deportations in the early years of the Obama administration.

“We didn’t think that this could happen,” explained Buen Pastor member Sada Lopez through a translator.

“The people who immigrate here are poor and looking for a better life for their families,” Garcia added, after a worship service in Buen Pastor’s warehouse sanctuary in a Raleigh industrial park. “It was when we began to see that people don’t have the freedoms they expected in this country that we began to pray to God that they would change the politics.”

They not only started to pray but also to take action, like cooking meals and collecting an offering for their neighbor’s temporarily fatherless family. Informed and inspired by their own detention in Louisiana, they held

vigils, spoke out in the media, and traveled hours to Arlington, Va., and Asheville, N.C., to meet with other immigrant-rights activists. Suddenly this evangelical congregation of landscape workers—who find relief in emotive, transcendent worship and faith-healing—started getting their hands dirty in earthly politics.

“We feel that we have to fight for our well-being here on earth and also fight for eternal life,” Garcia said. “I would hope that if there’s peace here, we’ll be able to be at peace with God also. God commands us to love one another, and we aren’t doing that. We have to fight in order for this to happen.”

For Buen Pastor, this new energy grows out of personal experience.

But this tiny congregation also represents a broader movement of churches getting active for immigration reform. Progressive religious coalitions formed years ago to work for change, but they’ve been joined in the past year by a host of evangelical groups, signaling a more diverse faith-based movement that has a better chance of accomplishing its goals.

Between surveys in June 2010 and March 2011, the Pew Research Center found a huge jump in the ratio of white, non-Hispanic evangelical Protestants who support legalizing currently unauthorized immigrants, from 54 percent up to 65 percent. That number had remained unchanged in the four years leading up to 2010. By the time of the second survey, fewer than a third of white evangelicals opposed citizenship for illegal immigrants currently in the United States. The general public also slightly increased its support between the 2010 and 2011 surveys, from 68 to 72 percent.

Both of those outcomes reflected a significant increase over Pew’s more comprehensive survey in 2006, which showed 57 percent of white mainline Protestants, 58 percent of white Catholics, and 62 percent of “secular” respondents supported a path to citizenship.

In June 2012, the National Association of Evangelicals joined with major denominations and parachurch organizations to form the Evangelical

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Immigration Table, calling for a new path toward legal status for undocuchief, Alexander Baumgardner, and immigration policy analyst Katie Conway, mented immigrants. Signatories included not just well-known social-justice in a letter to the committee. traditions like the Mennonites and Sojourners, but also Focus on the Family, Other denominations and monastic orders likewise emphasized how InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and the Southern Baptist Convention. the current immigration regime makes it relatively easy for businesses to Starting back in 2005, groups like Sojourners, Bread for the World, hire undocumented workers yet very difficult for those workers to relocate and World Relief had joined with mainline denominations and progressive with their families. Many migrants come to the United States to work and Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim voices to sign an Interfaith Statement on Immisend money to spouses, children, parents, and siblings back in Mexico and gration Reform. Together, they became the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, Central America. lobbying President George W. Bush and then President Obama for compreAnother letter, this one from the United Church of Christ, noted how hensive reform. But with Republicans struggling to attract the Hispanic vote, that denomination grew from the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. “As such, we as highlighted in the media after the 2012 presidential election, evangelical support the struggle of our sisters and brothers who have journeyed to this eyes were opening to how the biblical mandate to “welcome the stranger” land seeking safety, opportunity, and peace.” aligned with political necessity. Evangelical Republicans and evangelical That’s what the members of Buen Pastor ask of their English-speakDemocrats could find common ground on the immigration issue. In Januing fellow Christians. ary of this year, the Table launched “I Was a Stranger,” a campaign urging “It’s very important for them to stand beside us,” said Juan Carloschurches to spend 40 days in prayer for immigration reform.

Pacheco, another one of those arrested in Louisiana. “We are also people.

By the end of that month, a group of American senators—the “Gang We are people.” of Eight,” including former Republican residential candidate “They could put themselves in our shoes and try to imagine John McCain and Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin— what it’s like to be us and to see all of us as brothers and sisters IT IS ESPECIAL- in Christ,” added Lopez, whose own brother is one of several would cross party lines to propose a comprehensive reform LY IMPORTANT friends of Buen Pastor who have been detained and deported with new legal paths to citizenship, at a scale that hasn’t FOR FAITH- after what appeared to be racial-profiling traffic stops. “We are been enacted since 1986. By April they released the text of BASED COALI- all equal.” the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, which is currently being debated in the Pastor Garcia said undocumented immigrants can never live TIONS TO STEP Senate.

UP, BECAUSE at peace in the United States, even when they have stable homes The Act would require the Department of Homeland THEY CAN PRO- and jobs.

Security (DHS) to create, fund, and initiate both a border “The problem is that we feel like we’re illegal,” he said. “No VIDE A MORE matter where we walk or go, we’re still always illegal. Because of security plan and a border fence plan within six months of COMPASSION- this we can’t get a license to drive. We are very fearful when we the bill’s passing. At that point, undocumented immigrants ATE, HOLISTIC see a police officer and especially if they are driving behind us. would be required to come forward and declare themselves, pay fines and any unpaid taxes, and pass a background VISION OF It’s really hard.” check before receiving provisional status, which would qualUnfortunately, many political organizations view immigration IMMIGRATION ify them for a work permit. They would also have to learn reform as a way to meet their own ends (presidential votes, larger REFORM. membership, etc.) rather than as a way to ensure that human beEnglish and American civics and show a pattern of employment. Only if DHS can, within a 10-year period, meet the ings like Pastor Garcia and his congregation are treated, in their required standards of border security would immigrants then be allowed to own words, as “people.” Immigration reform is talked of almost as though apply for permanent residency. When they do apply, their applications would it’s a gift being granted to undocumented immigrants, when in reality it is a go behind the two-decade backlog of all those who have currently applied recognition of their status as children of God. It is also the result of tireless legally. (The framework also calls for stiffer sanctions against employers immigrant and Latino activists who have brought this issue to the forefront, who hire unauthorized workers.) through their voices and their votes.

On Ash Wednesday of this year, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a It is especially important for faith-based coalitions to step up, because hearing on the Gang of Eight’s initial proposal. Immigration has long been a they can provide a more compassionate, holistic vision of immigration redivisive political issue, and while there is growing support for legalizing an form—one that focuses not just on legal or economic ramifications but also estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United on separated families, the situation of immigrants in detention, and other States, the sticking point may be on how to regulate the flow of newcomers aspects of the immigration system that are anything but life-giving. Garcia in the future. “Controversy over a guest-worker program derailed comprealso points out that US citizens in particular are free to speak out in ways hensive reform when the Senate last debated it in 2007,” wrote Alexander that unauthorized immigrants cannot.

Bolton, who covers Congress for The Hill. Prior to the judiciary hearing, “For us, not having papers, being illegal, it’s taking a lot more risk,” he faith leaders held an ash-imposition liturgy across from the Senate office said, noting widespread arrests at the 2010 May Day rallies for immigration building in Washington. Across the country, interfaith coalition members held reform just weeks after Buen Pastor’s own detention. Those demonstramarches and vigils in support of new paths to citizenship. tions had drawn hundreds of thousands of activists from all over the United “Our immigration system should be reformed so that immigrants who States in four previous years. “We’re all willing to help and collaborate, but wish to reunify with their families or seek employment in the United States they used force, and that began to intimidate people, so the next year there do not have to make impossible choices between our immigration laws and were marches again, but there weren’t nearly as many people. It’s not that the people they love,” wrote the Episcopal Church’s government relations we don’t want to, it’s just that we’re afraid to go back to jail.”

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Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

Ten undocumented immigrants risked their freedom in a very public way last summer at the Democratic National Convention across the state in Charlotte. The 10 had ridden the UnDocuBus across the country from Arizona to demand immigration reform. Like Raleigh’s surrounding Wake County, Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County participates in the federal 287(g) program, which empowers local jailers to hold undocumented immigrants for immigration violations and hand them over to immigration authorities, even though such violations are not crimes but administrative breaches under US law. Often an immigrant is stopped for a license check, arrested for driving without a license, and then transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. But the protesters in Charlotte were released that same night. At the time, ICE spokesman Vincent Picard told the Charlotte Observer those protesters would have been a higher priority if they had committed other crimes, had recently crossed the border, or had been previously deported and then had returned.

Garcia speculates that the Democratic Party had quietly endorsed not only the protesters’ release but also the protest itself. “It was kind of a political stunt. The Democrats were kind of staging all of it,” he said. “But it’s important because it ended up helping us out.” Garcia said he is grateful for the bipartisan senators’ work toward reform. “The Republicans are changing their stance. As they’ve seen that more Latinos are voting for Democrats, the Republicans are starting to change.”

“We believe that in time we will see changes and there will be access to legalization for people like us,” said Carlos-Pacheco.

Despite their involvement in more political, hands-on work for immigration reform, Garcia said that Buen Pastor’s most powerful tool is prayer. At the service this past winter, a quartet—mother, father, daughter, uncle—led the congregation in the hymn “Grande Gozo Yo Siento En Mi Alma” (Great Joy I Feel in My Soul). The people sat in a windowless room, surrounded by 20-foot warehouse walls completely covered in a flowing crimson velour tapestry. Men and boys were on the left. Women sat on the right, with heads

covered and wearing skirts or dresses. They followed Garcia’s lead, standing, shouting, and raising their hands in worship as the family sang lines like, “He suffered scorn for my cause, he changed my darkness to light!” Associated with Mexico’s iconoclastic, apostolic Iglesia del Dios Vivo Columna y Apoyo de la Verdad, La Luz del Mundo, the “Good Shepherd” churches forbid musical instruments, so the people sang song after song without accompaniment.

Some congregants fell to their knees, pounding on the carpeted floor of the altar, weeping, crying out with “Gloria a Cristo!”

“Primarily what we do is that we pray for justice, we pray for the prosecutor to make a good decision in the case, and for there to be reform, and for people who are in these positions, for their hearts to be changed,” said Garcia.

For the 21 church members who weren’t deported immediately after the Louisiana traffic stop, the outcome has been satisfactory. They were released the following morning and two years later, while they were back in Houston for another Easter retreat, they got news from their lawyer that the removal orders had been lifted.

“It was a really important moment for us,” Garcia said. He also recognizes that media coverage and tireless legal work helped their case, and he feels responsible to do what he can to help others, like his neighbors from the Mexican state of Guerrero.

“We were praying for them, and thanks be to God, the man has recrossed the border to come back to them,” said Garcia. “He had really swollen feet from having walked so far.”

Jesse James DeConto is a freelance writer and musician in Durham, N.C., with a special interest in biblical justice. He is a regular contributor to PRISM, often writing for Music Notes, as he has in this issue.

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