What is your job at the border?

You don't have to be here to do important work.

Friends of Friendship Park holds bi-national Border Church services every Sunday on both sides of the US-Mexico border at Tijuana in the shadow of the wall, recently expanded during the Biden administration.

We all have a job to do. 

My job, of course, is to tell stories of humanity at the US-Mexico border. Stories of courage and resilience, kindness and cruelty, that my border companion Nina Wickett and I see here every day.

To share those stories, we immerse ourselves in the work of volunteering with other humanitarians who devote their lives to providing aid to asylum seekers and others “on the move” from all over the world.

It’s a job that can be rewarding and joyous one day, infuriating and heartbreaking the next.

I don’t want to do anything else.

I used to devote a lot of energy to working within our political two-party “system,” knocking on doors and making phone calls for candidates. But I grew disillusioned with that as the Democratic party lurched further to the right on immigration.

Here in Tijuana, in other border cities, I see suffering and injustice inflicted upon vulnerable men, women and children. They are not mere abstractions, part of a “crisis” that must be “solved” by staging phony photo-ops, spending millions of dollars of PAC donations on TV air time, or awarding billions of dollars in contracts to corporate donors.

There are real human beings here, thrust into life-threatening situations they did not cause or ask for. I hope their stories inspire some work on your part — that you keep them in mind, and in your heart, every time you hear or read about “the border.”

And respond accordingly when family, friends or acquaintances spout hatred or repeat lies.

Here are just a few people, human beings just like us, that we have encountered on this trip:

The young asylum seeker from Russia who has spent the past eight months living in a shelter in Tijuana, who stood in front of the altar as attendees of “Border Church” laid their hands on him last Sunday to bless him. 

The young man finally “won” an appointment with U.S. immigration officials through the notoriously unfair CBP One app, which our government uses to reduce human survival to the level of scoring tickets to a concert. 

The young man is scheduled to cross into the U.S. this weekend. There is no guarantee he will be released to his sponsor in New York, but he will be accompanied by the prayers of those who worship at Border Church — held each Sunday in the shadow of the ever-expanding costly wall approved, built and politicized by presidents from Bush I to Biden.  

A young boy works on his cardboard car at a shelter in Tijuana.

The young boy in a Tijuana shelter who crafted a toy car out of a toilet paper roll, pieces of string and wooden wheels, and wouldn’t part with it during a children’s party sponsored by the League of Women Voters of San Diego.

I watched him gleefully pull the toy car back and forth along a patio until the string finally gave out, and he moved on to a different volunteer table — either face-painting, picking out a book, making a hat out of a paper plate or decorating drawings with stickers, until it was time for pizza and the breaking of a piñata.

Why must the joy of a child be confined to a shelter, even a loving one such as this?

The tired, middle-aged Venezuelan man sitting in the San Diego airport waiting with his family for their flight to Chicago, who graciously accepted a sandwich and bottle of water handed out by volunteers.

“Any help you give us is appreciated,” the man said in Spanish. “You are very kind.”

Several organizations and churches prepare and distribute food — sandwiches, burritos or pizza — and bottles of water every day at the airport to migrants or anyone who requests it. One of the organizations is San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance. This week the president of the organization sued the current Republican candidates for president and vice president for the racist lies they continued to spread about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

David, of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, pulls a cart of water bottles through the San Diego airport to distribute free to migrants and others awaiting flights.

The gentle young girl from Mexico, maybe 6 years old, who caressed the braided hair of her younger sister, maybe 3 years old, who wore a pink backpack strapped to her tiny shoulders. The girls were among a group of children listening to instructions on what to expect when they are “processed” by the uniforms, badges and guns of the U.S. government. 

The sisters likely had no idea what was happening. But in that moment I hope they found comfort when they saw that they were accompanied by a handful of caring lawyers and advocates determined to protect them, no matter what, as they walked single-file toward the port of entry into the United States.