» Nurse helps migrant kids.
His work created field hospital at their camp
For months, Isaac Bencomo tended to sick migrant children who entered his El Paso pediatric emergency room, immigration agents waiting for them just outside the doors.
“It was very emotional in the sense that you can see in their faces that they’re distressed, they’re afraid and scared,” said Bencomo, a pediatric intensive care nurse who now works at San Antonio’s Children’s Hospital. “It was an experience for all of us working in that emergency room. To see the halls lined with (Customs and Border Protection) agents escorting these little asylum-seekers.”
That was in 2018, and even though the number of migrant children detained in the U.S. and arriving at border hospitals has dwindled, Bencomo continues to aid migrant children. He’s become the go-to liaison between medical volunteers and the government agencies to protect and aid migrants stranded at the border and vulnerable to the coronavirus.
A Mexican immigrant and U.S. legal permanent resident, the 27year-old moved to San Antonio this February on a travel assignment and became a regular volunteer at the migrant encampment in Matamoros, Mexico. There, hundreds of asylum-seekers are living in makeshift tents as they wait for court proceedings, part of the Remain in Mexico program rolled out by the Trump administration last year.
Though Remain in Mexico is largely on hold, thousands who arrived when it was in full swing are still scattered along the border in Mexico, waiting for their next hearings, which have been postponed to June 19 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The migrants in Matamoros, mostly Central American and
Mexican families, live in tents made up of tarp and garbage bags. Already vulnerable and living in close quarters, the volunteers knew early on that the migrants could easily catch and spread the virus.
Their poor health and hygiene at the encampment also increases their chances of falling gravely ill from the disease.
So far, no migrants there have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Bencomo, with his Mexican ties, began helping Global Response Management volunteers coordinate with the local and state Mexican government agencies to establish hand-washing stations, temperature checks and other protective measures as early as February. GRM is a medical nonprofit whose volunteers have been providing medical aid from trailers for nearly as long as the camp was formed.
Bencomo’s work led to the encampment’s first and only volunteer-run field hospital, erected at the end of April. It has coronavirus and antibody tests, as well as oxygen concentrators, portable X-ray machines and ultrasound technology. It’s staffed around the clock and has 20 beds.
“I felt a sense of relief and satisfaction knowing that Matamoros is the only place that has something like this set up (along the border for migrants),” he said.
And as the Trump administration closed the country’s borders in response to the pandemic, Bencomo mediated with Mexican government agencies, successfully allowing GRM to still cross its volunteers, medical supplies and equipment for the camp.
He’s now GRM’s government liaison to Mexico.
Bencomo was born in Mexico City but grew up on the border in Ciudad Juárez. At 4 years old he got a student visa to attend school in El Paso. He later received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Texas-El Paso. Last fall, he obtained a green card.
He says he counts himself lucky to have been born into a family on the border that could afford to send him to school in the U.S.
“My experience has been a lot less challenging than theirs,” he said of the migrants in Matamoros. “But ultimately I could very well have been one of those kids that I would care for in the ER. It was simply luck that I was born to a family that I was born into.”
In 2018, Bencomo was selected to be part of a Mexican delegation to a new leaders’ fellowship with the British Council.
Bencomo makes the four-hour drive to the border nearly every week after his shifts at the hospital. These days, he doesn’t cross to Matamoros because it would require a 14-day quarantine period afterward — preventing him from going to work at the Children’s Hospital. But he still goes to Brownsville, to meet with the volunteers and plan next steps to aiding the asylum-seekers.
He said his contract with the hospital expires next week, and he plans to visit the encampment with much more frequency.
“Even after we overcome this pandemic, those people are going to still be at risk. They will continue to be in a vulnerable state, facing very uncertain realities. And with governments in nations trying to collect themselves after the impact of this pandemic, there will be even less resources to go around for the needs of refuges and asylum-seekers across the world,” he said.
“It’s very important to understand that yes, everyone is hurting during these times. But it’s also important to acknowledge that these people who are already living in situations of vulnerability, will continue living that same reality.”