OKUMC Migrant Initiative

09/03/2021

Refugees from Afghanistan will be arriving in Oklahoma. Soon. And there may be quite a few!!
Some churches have begun working ways to help. Catholic Charities will be placing them.

02/14/2021

This includes a way to donate for essential supplies.

Last Saturday, a man from El Salvador stood with his 4-year-old son on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Just across the way, a scant one hundred yards, was Brownsville, Texas, and the promise of…

02/02/2021

https://apple.news/AU97frFJ8QqiTxCZY2aioZQ

President Biden will sign three executive orders on Tuesday focused on reforming the immigration system and undoing actions of the Trump administration, including establishing a family reunification task force and calling

09/15/2020

An immigration detention center in Georgia is under fire for questionable procedures and lack of COVID-19 testing as detailed by one nurse.

08/05/2020

On America's southern doorstep, the Rio Grande Valley, the U.S. failure to contain the pandemic has been laid bare.

03/04/2020

Good article!

A Laredo pastor and his family are hard at work helping others, on both sides of the border.

02/27/2020

Some parents even contemplated su***de.

02/12/2020

"Controlled blasting" for Mr Trump's border wall is taking place at sacred gravesites, tribes and lawmakers say.

02/06/2020

WASHINGTON — At least 138 people deported to El Salvador from the U.S. in recent years were subsequently killed, Human Rights Watch says in a new report that comes as the Trump administration makes it harder for Central Americans to seek refuge here. A majority of the deaths documented by Human Ri...

01/29/2020

On Saturday, one year will have passed since the widely-condemned 'Remain in Mexico' policy was brought into place.

12/18/2019

US Shelters for Asylum Seekers Declare: There is Room at the Inn

LAREDO, TEXAS – Today, representatives of 31 US border shelters who have collectively provided temporary shelter to welcome over 320,000 asylum seekers in 2019 demand an end to the misleadingly named “Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP).” In a two-day meeting this weekend in Laredo, Texas, the shelters shared testimonies of the difficult decisions families make to leave their homes and seek safety for themselves and their children at the border. We also discussed the extraordinary work of people of goodwill along the border who have volunteered their time and donated resources for asylum-seeking families because they are motivated by an understanding of our common humanity. Within our border communities, we reject the message that our capacity to help is overwhelmed.

Collectively, we are here to let the US government know that there is room in our inns.

Instead of allowing us to welcome these families, through MPP the US government is returning them to Mexico, where they face homelessness and danger from human traffickers and cartels.

As border shelters, we are ready to provide places of safety and welcome to asylum seekers. We know that when the US government returns families to Mexico to await court dates, the very process of return identifies them as targets for organized crime and heightens their risk of trafficking. US officials remove asylum seekers’ shoelaces purportedly so that they don’t harm themselves while in detention. But when they are sent back to Mexico, the cartels identify families with missing shoelaces as easy prey for kidnapping and trafficking. These unintended ties between US border policy and cartel violence harm families and strengthen organized crime. According to Human Rights First, there are 636 publicly reported cases of violent attacks against asylum seekers returned under MPP, and the vast majority of such attacks are not reported. We know from our firsthand experience that we can avoid feeding such violence by allowing families to seek asylum from within the US, instead of returning them to Mexico.

We, the representatives of 31 shelters are ready and eager to welcome asylum-seeking families. We oppose US government practice and policy that instead subject them to suffering and call on the US Administration and Congress to immediately end MPP.
--
Joanna Williams

Director of Education and Advocacy

Kino Border Initiative
P.O. Box 159
Nogales, AZ 85628-0159
Phone: (520) 287-2370
www.kinoborderinitiative.org