My Experience at the Border-- Guest Post by Kara Eastman

For the past couple of years, my half-brother, an interpreter for the federal criminal court system in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been telling me about devastating policy and procedural changes around immigration. Prior to the election of our current president, he had not seen children separated from their parents and guardians at the border. He had not seen so many people seeking asylum in the U.S. denied. And he had not seen so many people jailed for 30, 40, 50 days to then be returned to their countries of origin.

I decided to go to three cities that straddle the U.S.-Mexico frontier to see what the media, elected officials, and humanitarian groups have been describing. I also am disappointed that I have not heard about any member of the Nebraska delegation visiting the border. I believe that candidates for federal office should demonstrate how they will act as members of Congress, and I needed to see for myself what is happening in places like El Paso and New Mexico. I strongly feel an obligation to properly inform people in my district as I run for the House of Representatives in Nebraska’s second district. Finally, I really wanted to see my brother in action at work.

Our trip included a visit to a shelter and a nonprofit organization in El Paso, and a shelter in Ciudad Juárez (Mexico). After our shelter visit in El Paso, we walked across to Mexico for our next meeting. Getting there took a few minutes, but walking back across the border took over an hour because of our lack of proper infrastructure. There were a number of checkpoint lanes that had been closed, and the single file line to get back into the U.S. was very long.

As a result of Trump’s policies, there are many fewer people working at the ports of entry. The long lines are intended to be a deterrent for people getting across illegally. But the actual consequence is that hardships have been created for people that cross legally. A woman who works for the nonprofit told me her commute is now TWO HOURS each way as she works in El Paso but lives in Juárez.

In El Paso, I met a Mexican woman who is the spouse of a deceased American citizen. She has to come to the U.S. for a month each year to collect her spouse’s earned income benefits. However, European citizens who have deceased American spouses can have their checks mailed to them. This was both shocking and dismaying. Imagine the hardship of having to leave a home, bring a child to the U.S., live in a shelter, and then return home, only to do it again the next year.

The shelter we visited in Juárez is currently home to 680 men, women, and children. They are all awaiting either asylum or immigration hearings. The shelter is over capacity, lacks enough food, and does not have the proper refrigeration to store the donated food they receive.

I have run 2 homeless shelters throughout my career and never have I had to grapple with not having enough food for clients. In addition, the idea that the shelter residents were waiting in vain, thinking they may be granted permission to come to the U.S. legally, when the reality is they will not be, was heartbreaking.

On the second day of my trip, I went to work with my brother in Las Cruces to watch criminal court hearings. I was told that the day before, they had processed 98 people. I was there on a Tuesday, which is typically less busy, and I watched about 50 people have their hearings. My brother told me that the average cost for a person to be sent back to their country of origin (from arrest to final deportation) is about $10K per person. He also told me that it used to be people would spend very little time in jail if they were arrested under Section 1325 of the law. I watched as both men and women, ranging from ages 18 to 65, after spending 40 and 50 days in jail, were being sent back to their countries. I watched the conveyor belt of deportations and listened to the stories of people coming here fleeing violence, looking for work, or trying to see their families. I made a point to look at each one individually, people sitting in the courtroom shackled and handcuffed, waiting to hear that the U.S. does not welcome them no matter what their circumstance is.

I returned from my trip with a heavy heart and with a list. There are solutions to fixing our broken immigration system, but they are not coming from our current policy-makers. Residents of El Paso love their neighbors in Juárez; they love their binational city. Policy-makers who have not talked to people in border cities should not be making policies for our country, because they simply do not understand what our actual needs are. The President is deceiving people when he talks about crime in El Paso--it is one of the safest cities in the country (despite the horrific recent tragedy).

We need to fix the system; we need more ports of entry and more jobs created for people to work at the border. We need a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients and the TPS community. We hear a lot about expanding the guest worker program for “skilled labor” when we also need ways for people to work in the U.S. to perform essential labor (picking crops, working at meat packing plants, etc.).

We should view the border between the U.S. and Mexico the way we once looked at Ellis Island. Our country needs immigrants in order for us to thrive. We also should stop the denigration of the hard-working border officials who ensure our border is secure. I heard from some who said they signed up to protect our country, not to turn people away who are desperately seeking help, and certainly not to separate children from their parents. Our country will be safer when we fix the system that is too expensive, too ineffective, and too immoral.