Patrick in the kitchen at Casa de los Amigos, where he used to prepare meals and enjoy time with other migrants and refugees as they adjusted to life in Mexico City. Nina Linton.
The Casa de los Amigos, A.C. is a Center for Peace and International Understanding founded by the Quaker community of Mexico City in 1956 and a MCC Mexico partner. The Casa is a non-profit peace organization, a community center, the meetinghouse for Mexico City Friends, a social justice-oriented guest house, and a home. The Migration Program is based in the Casa’s unique hospitality and their rich multicultural community. Combining direct service, education, and collaboration, the Casa works to support migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrant crime and trafficking victims in Mexico City by offering temporary emergency housing and accompaniment.
Love might be the universal language, but here at Casa de los Amigos, in Mexico City, it’s often sports, and especially soccer, that help us first begin to bond. At the breakfast table, guests share stories of their favorite teams, they talk about Mexico’s soccer legacy and reminisce about World Cups past. In the evenings, volunteers, guests and neighbors head over to the Monument to the Revolution down the street to start pick-up soccer games.
This year we hosted a young refugee who found that soccer was a great way to build community in his new home.
Patrick, thirty-two years old, came to Mexico City from Cameroon searching for safety and stability. He arrived at Casa de los Amigos channeled by a partner organization that was helping him apply for asylum. Despite Patrick’s limited Spanish, he became friends with his roommates from El Salvador who were also fleeing their country of origin due to violence. Patrick was committed to finding his way in Mexico City. He worked with Casa staff and volunteers to understand how to get around the city and use the Metro and participated in our weekly community dinners.
Spanish classes. Casa de los Amigos.
He immediately joined the Casa’s daily Spanish classes for migrants and refugees and then never missed a day. At one of our celebrations with the other Spanish learners from all around the world, he taught us a popular Cameroonian song and dance, exemplifying a spirit of celebration despite difficult circumstances. As often happens, he also connected with the other students and formed a group of French-speaking friends who gave him tips on how to get by in the city. They also introduced him to a local Cameroonian soccer team. He never missed a game.
As Patrick became more comfortable in our community, he shared that he was a victim of torture in his home country because of his sexual orientation. Discrimination in Mexico is also a problem, but Mexico City’s center has traditionally been a positive place for foreigners and the LGBTQ community.
Spanish classes. Casa de los Amigos.
Each day, we saw Patrick becoming more comfortable in his new life. We saw him smile more.
After two months at the Casa, he found a room to rent thanks to a friend’s recommendation. After he moved out, he would get up early during the week to go Mexico’s National University, where he had received a scholarship to take intermediate-level intensive Spanish classes. Now in the evenings he works as a doorman at local bar. And since he works late on the weekends and lives far away, we’ve worked out an arrangement so he can stay at the Casa two days a week. And of course, Sundays are soccer days. He says that his team is the best and none of the Mexican teams can beat him. Patrick hasn’t let anything beat him yet.
Casa de los Amigos
Context:
Although people arrive from many different places, last year we saw a significant increase in the number of asylum-seekers in Mexico from Central America, mostly due to the increased violence in Honduras and El Salvador. The UNHCR (the United National Refugee Agency) has expanded their work on Mexico’s southern border which will hopefully result in better identifying refugees, a chronic problem in Mexico, as refugees travel alongside economic migrants and often are unaware of their right to seek asylum.
In Mexico City, we see a landscape that is becoming increasingly difficult for migrants and refugees, such as Patrick. Mexico’s Ley de Migración has made it harder for migrants to get legal documents and also harder for employers to employ foreigners. Local government offices in charge of supporting Mexico City’s more progressive and pro-migrant laws find themselves with smaller budgets and less political will to implement changes. COMAR, the federal government agency in charge of recognizing and supporting refugees and asylum-seekers also complains of a small budget while many migrants and refugees complain of inadequate treatment by this agency. The non-profit community works hard to fill the large gap left by the government and has continued to focus on strengthening networks within the city to especially help those interested in staying in Mexico and starting a life here.
Mexico’s Plan Frontera Sur, announced in July of 2014, has also heavily influenced the migration situation in Mexico. The Plan has resulted in the militarization of Mexico’s southern border, an exponential increase in the number of detentions and deportations of migrants in the country and a successful strategy to limit migrants’ use of the traditional routes (including the cargo train) to make their way north. As a result, partner organizations have been outspoken about the greater risks these migrants are now facing due to the fact that they must travel on more dangerous routes without the support of the network of migrant shelters, leaving them open to kidnapping, robbery, extortion, rape and murder.