Who is your “stranger”?

This post is also available in: Spanish

Story and photos by Saulo Padilla, Coordinator, Immigration Education, MCC US

I am a “Stranger”

In 1993 and 1995, I led a youth group to a conference in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Both times, when we crossed the border I was pulled aside and interrogated about my Canadian documents. In 2003, during a trip to Europe in my college years, a Swiss border officer, held my passport for half an hour, checking my background. He did not check the passports of the two other Caucasian friends travelling with me.

In July 2009, returning from a visit to my native Guatemala, a Customs and Immigration officer at the Houston airport decided to extend my Religious Visa on the spot. In February of 2010, the original expiry date of my visa, my daughters’ visas expired. My daughters and I ended at the Indianapolis Border Patrol office for four days, waiting in a room without a restroom or a water fountain, under threats that they would deport my daughters if I did not collaborate. My sense of impotence grew when the officer would not listen to my explanation. He did not accept that the officer in Houston had extended my visa on the spot, since that was against existing regulations. After four days of visiting the BP’s office, we were told to leave the country and get the visas renewed at the Canada border.

Humanizing Border Patrol Officers

In Nogales, México, in May 2010, I met Juán, a deportee who had lived in the U.S. for 16 years. He had attempted to cross the border several times in the last 3 months to reunite with his family in California. Juán shared how the Mexican police strip searched him several times and stole his money. Then he said that in his last attempt, the people he was with took his food and water, and that his coyote (human smuggler) took his money and abandoned him. He then said, “After two days of being lost in the desert, I was fortunate that a Border Patrol officer found me. He gave me food and water, he took care of my feet, and then he deported me.”

In May, 2012, at the start the The Migrant Trail – a 75-mile walk across the Sonora desert to bring attention to the deaths of migrants – I spoke with a Mexican-American woman from Tucson who helped serve lunch to the participants. She said, “My son is a Border Patrol officer.” I was surprised: How could it be that the son of an immigrant, serving lunch to immigrant advocates, could be a BP officer? “He is a good kid,” she said, “He helps mojaditos (a term of endearment in Spanish that means little wetbacks) all the time. He finds them and gives them food and water, and then he deports them.”

Juan’s story and the story of this woman’s son began humanizing the BP for me. She ended her story by saying, “when he comes home after work, I ask him the same question every day: how was work today mijo (my son)? He always replies with the same answer, ‘breaking dreams, Ma, like always, breaking dreams’.”

Who are the “Strangers,” the “Others”?

My work with MCC constituent groups involves theological reflection on the Biblical call to Welcome the Stranger. So, I often have to ask, who is the stranger? When I visit Tucson, AZ., my friend Bryce Miller, the pastor at Shalom Mennonite Fellowship, challenged me by stating that for him the stranger is both the migrant and the Border Patrol officer.

What does it mean for the Border Patrol to be the stranger? The last five years of constant engagement with the Border Patrol have helped me capture the depth of such an invitation. The invitation at the beginning was for those who hold an anti-immigrant posture to welcome my immigrant brothers and sisters.

Expanding the Invitation

But now the invitation has changed, and has become for ALL to welcome the other. Jesus’ rhetorical question, “what good is it if you welcome those who you love already?” (Matthew 5:38-48) is extremely important as we continue to build bridges between resident communities and newcomers. For Christian peacemakers, Jesus’ approach to strangers (tax collectors, women, religious leaders, centurions, etc) is a fundamental rule to encounters with the other. My stranger is no longer the immigrant. I am an immigrant. Loving my immigrant brothers and sisters is easy, it is not suffering, nor risk-taking. They are not my strangers. So then, who is my stranger? Seeing the Border Patrol as my stranger has turned the invitation 180 degrees.

In his book, Exclusion and Embrace, Miroslav Volf warns us of the serious threat that is found when we are in constant active engagement with the other, because we may consider using their own strategies. The tendency to make the stranger the recipient of our suspicion is a constant for humans; I have experienced this as an immigrant. My experience, activism, love, and solidarity expressed for the oppressed and marginalized, often turns into marginalization of others. It has led to rationalized exclusion and demonization of the other, in this case the Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol as my “stranger”

A new insight of seeing the Border Patrol as my stranger has also led to a refreshed invitation to embrace the other. This insight has also led me to focus on the root causes of conflict with Border Patrol. I have learnt that in the U.S., the suspicion and the abrasive behavior of Border Patrol officers comes from systemic brokenness in the immigration system, and a structural bellicose culture, so aiming my activism at a group of Border Patrol officers will not change much.

My current advocacy work focuses on increasing awareness to update the broken immigration system within constituent and non-constituent groups, and promoting policies that take into account the impact of the border wall and militarization on the communities along the border.

A new insight of my “stranger” came the last time I encountered an officer at the Mexico-US border during the Migrant Trail. I smiled as I approached the officer, he smiled back. He asked if I had enough water and food, and as he gave me back my passport he said, “if you need anything on the road let us know.”

So, let me ask, who is your stranger?