Migrants Find Refuge at Casa del Migrante
by Mary Alice Neylon, OP
Sr. Mary Alice Neylon (front row, third from left) with her English class for Spanish-speaking students. Photo courtesy of Sr. Jeanne Drea.
From January to September 2008, I was a volunteer at the Casa del Migrante in Juarez, Mexico. This is a house of hospitality which offers secure shelter, warm meals, clean clothing, and counseling to migrants from southern Mexico and Central America en route to the United States and to those deported to Mexico from the United States. The experiences of the migrants were the most effective education for me, although we had courses in trafficking, psychology, human rights, and Dominican spirituality. I’d like to share some journal entries with you. I am grateful for the opportunity to share the life and mission of the Casa. In September 2008, I left the Casa to continue working with Hispanic migrants in Apalachicola, FL.
Tuesday, Feb. 12
Until 9 p.m. this was an ordinary day. We served a dinner of rice, beans, and beef to 25 men, mostly Hondurans. Leftovers were put aside for breakfast. At 9 p.m., we received word that 40 hungry deportees would arrive at 10 p.m. We immediately peeled more potatoes, chopped more onions, and added water to the meat. This meant that we needed to prepare more food for the breakfast!
The deportees arrived tired, cold, and hungry. They had a cold cereal breakfast before boarding the plane at 3:30 a.m. and nothing since. Many had marks of the manacles on the wrists and ankles.
Deportees usually stay only overnight. The city of Juarez pays for their bus fare to other parts of Mexico. This alleviates possible problems. In 2007, the United States deported 88,000 persons to Juarez.
Wednesday, March 19
Julie and I prepared breakfast for 21 migrants. The 18 men left for work at 6 a.m. The women, Narda, Blanca, and Maria, stayed at the Casa and helped in the kitchen. I listened as we sifted stones from dry beans. The women discussed the human rights office presentation the previous evening. Blanca told us she thought her human rights had been violated. She worked as a domestic servant and never received money. She had run away when her mistress shaved her head as punishment for poor work. Though she reported to the human rights office, fear kept her from denouncing her employer.
This evening I went to a presentation on values. I was especially conscious of Juan, who had confided that he was unable to find work and would have to leave the Casa. Pedro’s face was creased with tension. Only when the presenter asked each man to remember how he felt when his child first called him “Papa” did his face relax into a transforming smile. I think the concept of God, our loving Father, was deepened for each of us that evening.
Later I learned that Juan was really a coyote who stayed at the house in hopes of contacting people who would pay him to guide them. Blanca, it developed, had been abused in other ways, too. She was diagnosed with AIDS and brought to a shelter for abused women.
Friday, June 7
I accompanied Sister Lucha and Gerardo, a lay volunteer, to pick up Friday’s donations of tortillas, bread, and pork. This is also the day that donations of fruit and vegetables come. We immediately turned over-ripe mangos into a cold drink and salvaged what we could of the potatoes.
For migrants from Honduras and Guatemala, coming to the border at Juarez has taken them two to four weeks of arduous travel on top of the train from the southern border of Mexico. At the evening talk, the migrants told why they had left home. Many are young, unmarried men looking for a better future, but Eliseo had left his wife and five children in Honduras so that they could receive food and an education. This is the irony of the migrant situation: they leave their families to provide for them, and they endanger their own lives to better themselves. I continue to be amazed by their confidence in God’s provident care.