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Response to migrant presence in Las Cruces

Walt Rubel

COMMENTARY:

Our efforts have not been welcomed by all

Perhaps we should feel relieved that asylum seekers will no longer be sent to Las Cruces, but it feels like the job isn’t finished yet.

In April, Border Patrol officials in El Paso notified the city that they planned to drop asylum seekers off at our bus station. Lots of them. More than 12,000 have passed through our community since then, mostly from Central America. Few spoke English or had the money needed for bus tickets. 

A partnership between local government, churches and other volunteers immediately sprang into action. El Cavario Church and the Gospel Rescue Mission were among the first to open their doors. Community members lined up to donate clothes, toiletries and other necessities. But the wave of asylum seekers soon became more than those facilities could deal with.

That’s when the city got involved, renting an empty building on Brown Road and converting it into a shelter and processing center. Asylum seekers were greeted warmly, fed, clothed and assisted on their journey to live with sponsors in other cities until their cases are heard.

Organizers had to figure things out on the fly, but after a while they had the process down, and were moving people through quickly and efficiently.

That’s about the time federal officials notified the city that our services were no longer needed.  

The Border Patrol has announced that it will stop releasing asylum seekers into Las Cruces. Cots at the shelter are lined up and ready for new arrivals, with clothing, blankets and toys for children. But there hadn’t been any for days, shelter director Kyle Boyd told the Sun-News.

Border crossings typically slow down in the fall and winter. But, the decrease can also be attributed to a new federal policy in which families seeking asylum in the United States are required to wait in Mexico.

And so, the immediate crisis is over, but the problems haven’t been solved.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich was in Las Cruces and Deming last week to offer praise for the local response to the crisis. He came representing himself.

There will be no thanks coming from the federal government. We’ll be lucky to get reimbursed for the $1 million in city funds spent to set up the Brown Road shelter. 

Our efforts could not have been welcomed at the highest level of federal government. At a time when the president was threatening to release immigrants on sanctuary cities as if they were rampaging zombies hungry for brains; and at a time when the Border Patrol was completely overwhelmed by and hopelessly incapable of dealing with the wave of immigrants humanely; our small community demonstrated that the situation could be handled with humanity and compassion, and without a threat to public safety. 

Any federal recognition for that is going to have to wait until after the 2020 election.

When you look at the big picture, it’s frustrating. Our immigration laws do need to be reformed, as the president is demanding. But that has to be a collaborative effort that considers all aspects, not just border security. It’s hard to see that happening in the current political environment.

And, nothing is happening to resolve the issues of crime, corruption and climate change that are driving Central American farmers to leave their homes in the first place. All we can do on those issues is continue to advocate and work for change.

But when you narrow the focus and look at each individual, there were more than 12,000 men, women, boys and girls whose difficult lives were made a little better by acts of kindness received in Las Cruces. That’s worth more than any official proclamation.