By: Peter Hightower, Area Media Specialist
Once a person decides to serve their neighbor, often times they don’t get to choose how that service will be manifest or who will be most in need of that service. When Pastor Becky Ballou of the First United Methodist Church in Eagle Pass, Texas started the non-profit Mission Border Hope several years back, she imagined that her coordinated outreach efforts would focus on victims of domestic violence and the homeless in her community. She had no idea at the time that her humble project would soon become a critical partner in caring for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers flooding the international border that runs through her sleepy little town.
So far in 2019 record numbers of asylum seekers have arrived all along the Southwest Border between the United States and Mexico, but the tiny town of Eagle Pass was hit particularly hard. Neither the Border Patrol nor city officials were adequately prepared for the sudden increase in traffic. The official numbers published by Customs and Border Protection[1] report that 432,838 total Family Units[2] were apprehended on the Southwest Border from October 2018 to July 2019 (FY19TD JUL) compared to 77,794 from the same period of the prior year (FY18TD JUL). In the Del Rio Sector, which Eagle Pass belongs to, the numbers surged from 2,109 in FY18TD to 26,904 in FY19TD, a 1,176% increase in apprehensions of Family units. The sheer number of asylum seekers overwhelmed Border Patrol stations large and small all along the border.
Border Patrol stations by nature are intended to be short-term processing facilities designed to securely hold an apprehended subject for only as long as it takes to identify the individual and determine their legal fate after crossing the international boundary. Under ideal conditions, a person will spend only a few hours in the Border Patrol station before being released or turned over to a separate agency for long-term care and disposition. Large influxes of migrants such as that experienced this year complicate a normally smoothly run system and strain the resources available to the stations. Once the Border Patrol started releasing Family Units due to the overwhelming numbers, border communities from San Diego to Brownsville suddenly found themselves responsible for the care and transport of thousands of people. Unprepared local governments were quickly overwhelmed and turned to faith-based organizations for assistance. This is where Pastor Becky and her group, Mission Border Hope, discovered they were perfectly situated to fill the sudden critical need.
Mission Border Hope is a coordinated effort supported by a collection of churches, non-profits, private businesses and other organizations in Eagle Pass. The group took over a small decommissioned church and converted it into a transitional shelter that provides a comfortable and safe resting area for migrant families as they are released from the local Border Patrol station. Pastor Becky and her volunteers provide an astonishing number of services in the short time they have an individual in their care.
Upon arrival, migrant families are given a short orientation and told what to expect in the upcoming days and weeks. They are given the opportunity to shower and change into clean clothes and are provided with hot meals from the in-house kitchen. Volunteers are on hand to provide medical screenings and assist in explaining the legal forms outlining the conditions of their release and location of their future court appearances. They assist the migrants in contacting family members via telephone and arranging transportation to the larger immigrant welcome centers currently operating in San Antonio and Austin. Perhaps most importantly, they offer reassurance and comfort and, if accepted, they pray with and for each migrant and their family.
At the peak in July, the shelter received an average of 250 migrants every day. Most spend only a few hours in the shelter but by the time they leave, each one is visibly rested and nourished both physically and spiritually and better prepared to face their inevitable challenges in adapting to life in a new country.
Mission Border Hope is entirely dependent on support it receives from organizations such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which recently donated 35,000 pounds of food and a separate trailer with 15 pallets of bottled water. Eagle Pass District President Ross Davidson was on hand to oversee the delivery of the food aid. He said of the donation “We love what Pastor Becky and Mission Border Hope are doing here in helping these migrant families and we’re very excited to partner with her organization to meet this critical need in our community.” The food from this single shipment will support Pastor Becky’s kitchen for several months.
The food shipment to Mission Border Hope in Eagle Pass is really just a fraction of the assistance that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is providing to help with the great influx of immigrants arriving on the Southern Border. Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recently met with the Vicar General of the Catholic Diocese of Austin, Father James Misko, to discuss a partnership between The Church of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church to combine efforts to help those with the greatest need in the Austin area. After the meeting with Father Misko, Elder Soares spoke with Spanish language news network Univision about the work the Church is doing to support immigrant welcome centers all across Texas. Elder Soares said,“We support the laws of the country, we understand the laws and we agree that we have to protect our borders. But, once we have somebody by us, our neighbor, who is in need, we will act in love and help and support this people.”
[1] https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration/usbp-sw-border-apprehensions
[2] Note: Family Unit represents the number of individuals (either a child under 18 years old, parent or legal guardian) apprehended with a family member by the U.S. Border Patrol.