Shoelaces: A Nurse’s View of Immigration Along the Southern New Mexico Border

Along the southern New Mexico border, there is no logistically-feasible option for moving through the asylum process as it is currently being enforced — especially when traveling with small children. When immigrant families travel north to cross the border they are met with a wall of resistance — so they cross rivers, or go under or over walls, and let themselves be picked up by border patrol. It must be a frightening experience, and it shouldn’t have to happen this way, but it’s the reality right now for people on both sides of the border — for the people who feel the desperate need to cross, and for those waiting on the other side.

Only once these immigrant travelers set foot on US soil are they allowed to plead their cases. A sponsor, often a family member, is required and verified. Successful immigrant families are then given a court date in their city of choice, most often where their US sponsor is located, in Boston, New York or Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans, or LA. Then they’re bused to one of the temporary shelters like ours, in El Paso, Las Cruces, or Deming, among others, to await transportation. Our nonprofit shelter is run by the goodhearted people of Las Cruces, who are united in the goal of preventing families with children — human beings like themselves — from cooking to death in the Chihuahua desert while trying to figure out how to get themselves to Boston, New York, or Chicago. To la familia. You, too, could try hiking in 110-degree temperatures, which the…