Andrea* arrived at our door with her three year old daughter Carmita in early January. Unlike most others who are arriving from Mexico, she came to the San Antonio Greyhound bus station from Cleveland, OH, frantic to check on her husband and seven-year-old son being held in detention just west of San Antonio. Andrea had traveled to the US a year ago from Guatemala seeking asylum and was staying with her brother in Cleveland awaiting news from her husband Carlos who had delayed his departure. ICE had called her in Ohio to tell her to come and claim her son whose detention had exceeded the 21 day limit. Now she needed legal advice and emotional support as she feared her son would be separated from her husband, and that he would be deported back to Guatemala where they fled gang violence six months ago.
The San Antonio community has formed a model network of organizations to support the thousands of asylum seekers like Andrea and Carlos who pass through their city each year. Each organization provides a unique set of services needed by those fleeing violence in their home country. As soon as Andrea arrived at the bus station, she was approached by a volunteer in a blue vest speaking Spanish who identified herself and asked if there was anything she could do to help. These volunteers are the gateway to other organizations that provide overnight accommodations, clothing, healthcare, assistance buying bus tickets, food, legal advice and long-term assistance when immigrants stay. San Antonio Mennonite Church where we volunteer provides overnight accommodations both short and long term in their hospitality house La Casa de Marta y Maria. This is where we met Andrea that first day. At the height of this ministry, the Mennonite church provided shelter for up to 300 immigrants per night. This has dropped to 2-15 per night in 2020 and is now handled by La Casa
Typically, the La Casa Coordinator gets a call from the Interfaith Welcome Coalition (IWC) or blue vests as I call them, whose volunteers greet immigrants in the bus station to inquire about their needs. The San Antonio bus station is often immigrants first real stop since crossing the US Mexico border. When the bus tickets require an overnight stay in San Antonio, we pick up the immigrants, feed them and provide a clean and safe space to sleep before sending them on their way the next morning. In 2019, 32,379 immigrants passed through San Antonio and the IWC provided 25,000 backpacks filled with clothing and food, found shelter for 22,000 and served 85,000 meals through their food bank (interfaithwelcomecoalition.org 2/2020). IWC has nearly 1000 volunteers who greet and serve the immigrants as they exit nearby US ICE Detention Centers or come straight from the Mexico border. In Andrea’s case, we hosted her for two months.
Andrea was also connected that first day with the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. Raices is a nonprofit organization based in Texas that provides legal services for immigrants and Andrea needed legal help with her son and husband who had been in the area Detention Center for six months. As of 2018, Raices was the largest legal aid group of its kind in Texas with 130 employees. They also have a presence at the bus station in order to answer questions about the immigrants’ legal status and to connect them with legal services locally and around the country. Since the paperwork for asylum seekers is complex and difficult to decipher, Raices provides education and referrals as well as low cost or free legal services for asylum seekers in building their case to stay in the US. For many seekers, this legal process involves months and even years of paperwork and legal work that would be impossible to complete successfully on their own.
The Migrant Immigration Center for Human Rights also provides legal services but primarily to those in US ICE Detention Centers like Karnes that held Andrea’s husband and son. The Migrant Center provides free and low-cost legal services to detained, low-income immigrants facing removal from the United States at the third largest adult detention center in the U.S., the South Texas Detention Complex located an hour outside of San Antonio. With a bed capacity of nearly 2000, this is the third largest detention center in the US. An asylum seeker from Somalia put it this way, “In this [detention] facility everything is hard if you don’t have a lawyer… [They] don’t respect you if you don’t have a lawyer.”
Andrea also utilized Catholic Charities, another key part of the immigrant support network. In San Antonio, among the many services they provide to the poor and vulnerable population is monetary assistance to purchase bus tickets for those heading to places like Seattle, Los Angeles, New York and Cleveland as Andrea would be if reunited with her husband and son. Many of the asylum seekers have been traveling from 3 months to a year before reaching the US. Upon arrival, they often have nothing left but the clothing on their backs. To make it the final leg of their journey, requires an additional $200-$300 per traveler for the bus ticket. Catholic Charities provides this help and sends them on their way.
This impressive immigration support network requires fulltime professional staffs, millions of dollars in donations and thousands of volunteers each year. It has been a pleasure and a challenge to be one small part of this welcoming network during our two months in San Antonio. Even better was the opportunity to accompany Andrea and her daughter to the bus station for the reunion with her husband and son when they finally arrived from the Detention Center. The tears of joy flowed freely from all of us who witnessed this miracle of family reunion.
*Names and all identifying information have been changed to protect the family involved.
