The Sting of Message in a Bottle

I used to do a lot of work with immigrants and on the immigration issue. As long-time readers of this blog might know, I have been to the Arizona/Mexico border six times and deep into Mexico once (where we drank tequila out of Pope shot glasses with a Catholic priest). My old social justice group from church had immigration reform as one of our top priorities and we volunteered in detention centers and in various immigrant support organizations throughout the Denver area. 

That work has receded from my working memory, buried by COVID and the post-pandemic anxiety over the mental health of my children and my friend's children. I got busy working with young people through coaching, and though we still give to the organizations I formed relationships with back in the 20 aughts and 2010's, I had in large part buried those experiences under the busy-ness of the present.

The musical production "Message in a Bottle" brought the memories back on Friday night. Rob and I went to see this brilliant dance performance (choreographed and directed by Kate Prince), sponsored by the music of Sting, with his co-worker and her husband. Seated next to the co-worker, I didn't want to burst into the tears that threatened throughout the first act but instead clasped my hands together until the knuckles glowed ivory.

In the words of Lolita Chakrabarti's synopsis, "we live in a world where one person is forcibly displaced every two seconds as a result of conflict or persecution. In 2022 statistics show that over 100 million people around the globe had been forced from their homes." She goes on to summarize the story of "Message in a Bottle": "We follow the fortunes of a father, mother and their three teenage children who face this brutal reality (of civil war) together."

The dancers' moves were magical, the versions of Sting's songs poetic and moving. The first act showed trauma of war, separation, abuse, abduction. As I watched and clenched my hands I kept thinking "this is happening, this is happening now."  In Ukraine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, Syria, Venezuela, in so many places around the world families are being broken by forces outside of their control and it's just dumb luck that my family and I are safe and together.

Why did I stop my work? Is it a post-pandemic selfishness that cares only for myself, my own family, the children of my community? The only interactions I have now with the immigrant community are postings on social media and twice-yearly donations. Nearly forgotten are the days of teaching English in the Aurora detention center behind bars with men and women from around the world, the days of washing feet at the border and of pushing for reform.

The issue of immigration will only get more pressing, as we can see in the news everyday. We currently have no good answers for the issues that come with climate change and global destabilization that will surely contribute more and more people on the move, desperate for someplace safe to raise their families. I think I need to go back, to do something more, and I owe this discomfort and sorrow to Kate Prince, the dancers, and Sting.

These People Are Desperate

I sat in the airport ten days ago with my large backpack and sleeping mat rolled up at my feet. Friends on either side disposed of similar camp-style gear as we awaited our flight to Tucson. A middle-aged man near us sat forward in curiosity, elbows on knees and moustache twitching. "What are you all fixing to do out near Tucson?" he asked.

"We're camping!" my friend responded cheerfully. "We're going to check out the border situation and will camp in the desert for a night."

The gentleman was horrified. "You don't want to do that!" he exclaimed. "The people out there are desperate."

"We know," she said. "That's why we want to check out the situation and see if we can help."

"I hate to see this," he said. "You ladies out there unprotected against God knows what. I can take it, because I'm armed, but I don't like to see this." He sat back in disgust.

The interchange stuck in my mind throughout my uneventful (safety-wise) weekend in and around Tucson. We saw hardly anyone at our camp near Arivaca; the only danger we suffered from was frost-bitten toes as we slept on our mats and sleeping bags under the star-filled desert sky. We thought of immigrants who might have been crossing the rocky desert at that time, fighting off cold and darkness as they plunged headlong down rocky paths through washes and canyons that we could barely traverse in broad daylight, with good shoes.

The immigrants I've met in Mexico are desperate, all right; desperate for work, desperate to feed their hungry children, desperate to reunite their families, desperate to fulfill the hopes of family members left behind who sacrificed a year's income to pay for their dangerous passage. I don't mean to glamorize immigration, but you should understand that the majority of folks who come across are hard workers who leave out of necessity. Certainly there are dangerous folks crossing who belong to the narcotraficantes or to the human smuggling operations; strangely, even they have been no threat to humanitarian aid groups which observe common sense like staying off the trails at night and refusing to carry weapons.

"But they're stealing our jobs!" I hear over and over again. Not so. In a Denver Post article this week local farmers describe how difficult it is to obtain local workers to do the work of harvesting fruit, even when they are supposedly desperate for work. For example, "John Harold of Tuxedo Corn in Olathe said he gets few local applicants because word has gotten around that his work days begin at 6am. 'It's amazing how few have applied this year,' he said." Denver Post, 4/19, (http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_14911550) Another farmer, Bruce Talbott, noted that the locals on his fruit operation worked 37 - 55 hours per week while the H-2A workers were in the orchards for about 70 hours over the same time period. Desperate can mean hard-working, willing to do boring work for long hours without stopping or without complaining.

"Well, immigration is flooding our country with poor, unskilled people who drain our resources," I hear. Again, this does not appear to be the case. In an April 16 article, the New York Times reported the following:

"In 14 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York and San Francisco, more immigrants are employed in white-collar occupations than in lower-wage work like construction, manufacturing or cleaning.

The data belie a common perception in the nation’s hard-fought debate over immigration — articulated by lawmakers, pundits and advocates on all sides of the issue — that the surge in immigration in the last two decades has overwhelmed the United States with low-wage foreign laborers." (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/us/16skilled.html)

I'll tell you my experience of desperate people. Several years ago I met two young men in the desert. They had been walking for five days - in circles, we discovered - and had only made it ten miles. They had had no water for a day or two and no food for three. I took some food packs out of my backpack and gave one to each of the young men. They opened the bags eagerly and prepared to tear in, then stopped. One of them held a granola bar out to me, saying in halting English, "Do you want one?" I assured him that I was exceptionally well fed, and encouraged him to dig in.

Another story is told by John Fife, one of the founders of No More Deaths. He and several volunteers were on patrol in the desert one hot day, yelling out "We have food, water, medicine." If any were desperate enough to need help, they might answer. Suddenly, a group of heads popped up from the mesquite bushes. They said, "we don't have much, but you are welcome to share what food and water we have." A misunderstanding which illustrates the generosity, the compassion, and the heart of desperate people. What does desperate look like to you?

At the Comedor, Part 2

Imagine this:
You and your husband are at home one evening when three uniformed officials drive up. They handcuff both of you and remove you forcibly from the home, pulling you away from your three young children, aged 9, 7, and 4. The little ones are horrified and frightened to see their parents handled like criminals and taken away without explanation. “Where are you going?” they cry, “come back!” A court official takes your children and places them in another car, drives the other direction. You don’t know if you will ever see them again. You have no control over the situation, no voice in where your children are taken or who will explain where you have gone. You have no rights.

You and your husband are driven four hours south and deposited on the other side of an international border without money, possessions, or access to your children. You are told never to re-enter, that re-entry may incur a felony charge and long jail sentence. Your husband breaks down, a mess. You are also lost, tortured by worry and grief, and yet you must find a way to get the children back.

Sitting in a soup kitchen along with a hundred other people removed from their homes, workplaces and communities you find a volunteer amongst those serving food. You ask her to find your three children and bring them here, to a desperate place where you cannot find work, housing or regular food, but where you can be together. This Samaritan decides to help. She drives four hours north, finds the court official who has temporary charge of your little girls and little boy, and within a week or two, obtains temporary custody of the children from an aunt. Recall that she is a complete stranger to the children, and they have been officially released into her care.

Fortunately, she is an angel, and dresses the children carefully, placing pink bows in the girls’ hair, brushing pig-tails and washing faces. The children have clean, matching clothes and are bubbling over with worry and nervous excitement as they are bundled into the car. Down south, you and your husband are allowed to wait nervously in the safety of the soup kitchen, which is largely empty, between meals. You pace the small distance of the concrete floor and peer routinely through the chain-link fence at the cheerless, dusty street. Strangers come and go, their appearance barely noted as your tension mounts. Where are the children? They are late; are they safe? Was this a good plan?

Mom retreats to a bench and huddles as if in prayer, while father cannot contain his anxiety and walks outside on the hot pavement. At 4:00 in the afternoon three children rush the gate, surprising both parents. “Mama, mama!” they call. Your little boy grabs the door and shakes it eagerly. “Mama, Mama,” he repeats. You issue a cry of joy and leap for the locked door. A volunteer quickly moves to open it and the children melt into your body, which bends, umbrella-like, to shelter all of them in your arms. Tears are flowing, children jumping in small, excited bounces that will not remove them from their mother’s embrace. Their hiccuping sobs reverberate in the small space. Your husband hovers nearby, tears streaming down his dusty face, which crumples with relief and with pain.

That night you may find shelter in a temporary room, or you may sleep in the cemetery. There is no work here, and though your children are allowed to return north, you may not. You may not even consider this possibility for 11 years. The future does not look easy or good but for now, you are all together.

I witnessed the reunion portion of this story last weekend at the Comedor in Nogales, Mexico. Father John Dear describes the Comedor as: “a soup kitchen and refugee center run by the Jesuits and the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist. They serve two meals a day to the hundreds dumped into Mexico after the U.S. deports them. The work at the soup kitchen goes on non-stop; the deported slump in hunger and exhaustion, but leave grateful for the human exchange.” in National Catholic Reporter April 13, 2010, http://ncronline.org/news/justice/our-matthew-25-duty-us-mexico-border

Our group from the Denver area had just spoken with the Sister in charge of the Comedor, learning she served 300 people the previous day, that people were limited to fifteen days of meals, that the flow of the hungry never slowed. As we rose to leave the young boy came to the gate with his passionate cries of joy for his mama. We stood uncertainly nearby, almost all women, almost all mothers. Tears leaked down our faces as we watched, imagining the terrible grief and anxiety of separation, feeling a shadow of the joy and relief of reunion. Did they see us at all in that moment? Doubtful. If they observed us, did they see our tears, or simply citizens who acquiesce in a policy that wrenched apart their family? Do they see fellow mothers or do they see “others” who cannot, or who will not, stop this unnecessary, fruitless, and painful policy of separating parents from children in the name of security and economy?

A Night at the Detention Center

The other night we joined Coloradans for Immigrant Rights and the American Friends Service Committee at a vigil for immigration reform at 30^th and Peoria in Aurora. This busy street corner stands a short distance from the** GEO –run detention center that will hold 1,200 individuals when the new annex is completed. The majority (if not all) of the residents of the detention center are immigrants who were arrested for not having the appropriate papers. Mind you, entering the country without documentation is a misdemeanor clerical offense along the lines of driving without a proper license. The individuals in the detention center are held without access to legal counsel and often without the ability to communicate with their families. Because GEO is a private company which operates in relative secrecy (under their government contract), abuses are more likely. Taxpayers pay $133 per night per inmate to support their incarceration.

The vigils for reform are held on the first Monday of each month, and this month’s vigil was sponsored by the Denver chapter of No More Deaths / No Mas Muertes (http://www.nomoredeaths.org/), which sees parallels between the dire situation of immigrants crossing the desert (facing severe illness and even death) and the inhumane treatment of inmates in US detention centers. We opened by discussing No More Deaths’ role here in Denver, followed by an introduction of the AFSC Campaign called Dignity, Not Detention, which will attempt to persuade the Obama administration to reform the detention system. Then Jerry Herships, a pastor at St. Andrew UMC in Highlands Ranch, read a prayer, an excerpt of which follows:

“ Leader/Líder: Remind us God that you are a just God. Remind us that you believe in everyone having their day to tell their story and that a system that is not fair for all is not fair for any. Help us be your hands and feet and voice that fight for everyone to feel the process of justice.
Recuérdanos Dios que eres un Dios justo. Recuérdanos que tú crees que todos deben tener su día de contar su historia y que cualquier sistema que no es justo para todos no es justo para nadie. Ayúdanos a ser tus manos y pies y voz para que todos sientan el proceso de justicia.

All/Todos: EL DEBIDO PROCESO PARA TODOS /DUE PROCESS FOR ALL”

After the prayer we sang “We Shall Overcome” in the frosty outside air. I could not escape the irony of singing four verses passionately in complete freedom, then glancing at my watch to make sure I would not be late getting home to the babysitter, while the detention center inmates languished without connection to the outside. How many women inside the detention center cannot get out to see their children – can not even call to see if they are safe? Life’s sharp contrasts and injustices brought me a tinge of despair greater than the reality of the internment center itself.

As we sang and chanted, men’s hands plastered against the frosted windows like so many starfish splayed against an aquarium. The windows, above shoulder height, framed their reaching arms and frantic faces; their expressions desperate bids for attention and connection. We flashed peace signs, raised fists, and promised to close the detention center. Other alternatives exist; certain municipalities have experimented with monitoring individuals through bracelets or by simply having them call in to a volunteer organization (such as a church). A vast majority of the individuals monitored appeared at their court date. The charge for a program like this is far less than $130/person/day. Let us hope we have the strength to improve the system, even as the people inside have the strength to last their sentences.

** The GEO Group, Inc. ("GEO") is a world leader in the delivery of correctional, detention, and residential treatment services to federal, state, and local government agencies around the globe. GEO offers a turnkey approach that includes design, construction, financing, and operations. GEO represents government clients in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. GEO's worldwide operations include the management and/or ownership of 62 correctional and residential treatment facilities with a total design capacity of approximately 60,000 beds, including projects under development.