WE WORRY ABOUT THOSE JUST BEYOND OUR BORDER
Imagine being so desperate to escape physical harm or crushing poverty that you’d leave behind the only home you’ve ever known and all your belongings to travel thousands of miles with the hope of finding safety, security and a better life. It is the mothers, fathers and children confronted with this unimaginable choice and general despair our family has had the honor of supporting at San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter Services.
We started volunteering shortly after October 2018 when the Department of Homeland Security abruptly shifted from its longtime policies of helping asylum seekers connect with family in the U.S. and assisting them with travel arrangements to simply leaving them stranded in Downtown San Diego. Jewish Family Service and its partners in the Rapid Response Network quickly mobilized to set up a temporary shelter location. Not long after, the county of San Diego jumped in and a boarded-up downtown courthouse was transformed into a bustling way station for stranded migrants.
In Judaism, we are taught that we are each responsible for tikkun olam , or “repairing the world.” With this strong belief in mind, our family of five began volunteering to support shelter operations. We sorted donated clothes, served meals, wiped down furniture and mopped floors. Our favorite assignment was the child care room where we entertained kids, practiced our Spanish and discovered that when we played together, language barriers disappeared.
During mealtime, we’d hold newborn babies to give their parents the respite to eat and rest. We’d pause and reflect at the incredible strength and resilience of each person before us and their determination to give their children better lives in the U.S.
While the asylum seekers we served hailed from locations across the globe (Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, China, Russia and more), they all shared an abiding need to flee violence, persecution or poverty. Most had taken long and arduous journeys.
With the implementation of the socalled “Remain in Mexico” program in early 2019, the shelter’s daily guest count plummeted from a high of over 300 to a low of 40.
Not long after, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the implementation of Title 42, a policy which effectively shut down the border, causing the daily guest count to dwindle to just a handful each month. Countless families were being denied their right to safety and security in the name of “public health.” Forced to pause our volunteer efforts, we often thought about the faces of relief we would see in the shelter and the contrast to the emotions families must be feeling on the other side of the border.
Last year, when restrictions eased and volunteers could come back to the shelter, we returned to prepare and deliver meals to a local hotel temporarily repurposed to shelter asylum seekers so they could be socially distanced while they awaited COVID-19 test results.
Recently, the shelter’s travel center was able to welcome limited numbers of families as they waited for flights, trains or buses that would take them elsewhere in the U.S. while they awaited processing. Here, our country’s newest arrivals are assisted with dignity and respect by supportive staff and volunteers.
A few weeks ago, a family from Jamaica waited for its flight to New York, and we had a lot of fun entertaining the four children, ages 1 to 11, for a few hours. As we played pretend “store” and “restaurant,” we thought of all the other migrant children who weren’t there with us — the ones still stuck on the other side of the border waiting months or even years for permission to cross.
Were they safe? Were they fed?
Every day the cruel Title 42 policy remains in place, we worry about how the migrants just beyond our border are surviving in unsafe and unsanitary conditions with the impossibility of social distancing and the inability to reach safety in the U.S.
We anxiously await the day when Title 42 is lifted and shelter services are once again abuzz with families en route to safety, security and a better life. This is how we “repair the world.”
We are grateful to the nonprofits in our community for the important work they are doing in support of asylum seekers. We are honored to bear witness to the courage and strength of these families and play a supporting role in their journey.
In Judaism, we are taught that we are each responsible for tikkun olam, or ‘repairing the world.’ So we volunteered.
Blum