The people in outdoor detention, before they're released to us at Annunciation House
Photo by Bri Erger of Denver CO -- also one of our volunteers
This is something I wrote at 4 am on about the third day of Ande's & my 2 week 12-14 hour days helping the refugees of our Central American wars past. President Trumps invective against these people, seen on the news, was deeply upsetting. In interviewing over 200 of them I found no gang members. Mostly young women, or men, with a child or two, having left the rest of the family behind, in a desperate attempt to find safety--all their belongs carried in a meager basketball-sized plastic sack. Few spoke English, and for many Spanish was a second language as they came from remote indigenous areas Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
After their release from border patrol detention, we at the Annunciation House centers arrange multiple phone calls to friends & family sponsors, already living & working all across the USA, who'd buy them bus or plane tickets, so they could move on asap, to be reunited, sustained after thousands of miles, and now awaiting asylum court hearings. No cost to U.S. taxpayers, and welcomed by families here who know their former distress and continued value.
*******************************************
March 28, 2019
Open letter to President Donald Trump, from El Paso TX.
Dear Mr. President,
I watched you on a Washington Post video clip yesterday from where we
work with the refugees of your “emergency” at our southern border. It was hard to
believe. It was appalling—the level of self-satisfied arrogance.
My wife Ande and I arrived in El Paso answering a call from our churches in
Port Huron, MI to assist in this situation of border chaos. You talked as if the
families we are helping here to find refuge, as simply a matter of the bad politics of
Central American governments and their taking out their trash, dumping it on poor
U.S.A. Please inform yourself on the history of our brutal Iran-Contra wars in these
countries you berate [and don’t trust your Elliot Abrams, who back then engineered
this mess, to be your guide]. For just one incident -- NPR program on Dos Erres village massacre, and critique by NACLA .
There is a real danger that our society, in its blind push to make ourselves
great again, will die of its own excesses. These people whom we’ve been welcoming
here are not perfect, and are certainly no more nor less “great” than any of us. When
you demean them and their place of origin, you place a dangerous gulf between us
and the rest of the war-stricken world. Once upon a time, we viewed them as the
teeming masses yearning to be free.
This is a question of our own salvation, more important than politics—rich as
we may be. We must pay attention to the Gospel story of Dives the rich man and
Lazarus at his gate Lk 16. What does it profit if we control and consume the whole
of the world’s resources, from our own gated community, if we lose our own souls.
Mr. President, consider joining the Peace Corps [there are a number of ex-
members doing hands-on assistance with us], AmeriCorps, or a faith–based mission
project. Get out of your rarefied policy bubble. Work alongside former President
Carter on an international Habitat for Humanity project. Learn more personally
about these people of whom you most carelessly speak. Many great civilizations
have expired within their own selfish militarized boundaries. More people have
perished, many souls have been lost in the needless tragic wars created out of hell-
bent self preservation at all cost.
There are hundreds coming in here in El Paso each day now. They need
bridges to cross over [and not to be corralled under as the CBP is doing now] and
certainly not walls.
They take care of each other here in our center and display amazing patience
in their long trying travels. My wife and I also witness the extraordinary efforts of
staff and many local volunteers here at one of Annunciation House’s centers. All
guests and staff stretched to the limit, and still progressing. Wake up America.
Repent Mr. President Trump and followers of the flag before the cross. Walls are for
castles, not for countries.
Dear Mr. President,
I watched you on a Washington Post video clip yesterday from where we
work with the refugees of your “emergency” at our southern border. It was hard to
believe. It was appalling—the level of self-satisfied arrogance.
My wife Ande and I arrived in El Paso answering a call from our churches in
Port Huron, MI to assist in this situation of border chaos. You talked as if the
families we are helping here to find refuge, as simply a matter of the bad politics of
Central American governments and their taking out their trash, dumping it on poor
U.S.A. Please inform yourself on the history of our brutal Iran-Contra wars in these
countries you berate [and don’t trust your Elliot Abrams, who back then engineered
this mess, to be your guide]. For just one incident -- NPR program on Dos Erres village massacre, and critique by NACLA .
There is a real danger that our society, in its blind push to make ourselves
great again, will die of its own excesses. These people whom we’ve been welcoming
here are not perfect, and are certainly no more nor less “great” than any of us. When
you demean them and their place of origin, you place a dangerous gulf between us
and the rest of the war-stricken world. Once upon a time, we viewed them as the
teeming masses yearning to be free.
This is a question of our own salvation, more important than politics—rich as
we may be. We must pay attention to the Gospel story of Dives the rich man and
Lazarus at his gate Lk 16. What does it profit if we control and consume the whole
of the world’s resources, from our own gated community, if we lose our own souls.
Mr. President, consider joining the Peace Corps [there are a number of ex-
members doing hands-on assistance with us], AmeriCorps, or a faith–based mission
project. Get out of your rarefied policy bubble. Work alongside former President
Carter on an international Habitat for Humanity project. Learn more personally
about these people of whom you most carelessly speak. Many great civilizations
have expired within their own selfish militarized boundaries. More people have
perished, many souls have been lost in the needless tragic wars created out of hell-
bent self preservation at all cost.
There are hundreds coming in here in El Paso each day now. They need
bridges to cross over [and not to be corralled under as the CBP is doing now] and
certainly not walls.
They take care of each other here in our center and display amazing patience
in their long trying travels. My wife and I also witness the extraordinary efforts of
staff and many local volunteers here at one of Annunciation House’s centers. All
guests and staff stretched to the limit, and still progressing. Wake up America.
Repent Mr. President Trump and followers of the flag before the cross. Walls are for
castles, not for countries.
