Constructing peace across a violent border

This post is also available in: Spanish

Photo credit: Chris Hershberger-Esh

By Chris Hershberger-Esh, MCC’s Context Analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Mexico City.

Fifty tired-looking migrants, mostly men, formed a circle around the crowded dining hall where the Kino Initiative runs a soup kitchen in Nogales, Mexico. A woman with a teaching-background began counting off the participants into two teams and explained the game. Each team had to pass a tennis ball around the circle to all of their teammates in the fastest time possible. Whoever got the ball around first scored a goal.

At first they played along, but only a few people seemed really into it. But after a few rounds, basically every adult in the room was cheering loudly for their teammates, smiling and/or laughing. The place was full of energy.

For these men, many of who had already been through hell—deportation, days in the hostile desert, or a long dangerous trek across Mexico—this was rare a moment where they could relax, and even laugh. I sat in the back, amazed at the transformation I just witnessed, along with a handful of other MCC leaders who were visiting that day.

Nogales, Mexico is a city of over 200,000 that is set apart from Nogales, Arizona by an intimidating metal wall to keep migrants out of the United States. If you walk far enough into the desert, however, the wall eventually ends, so many migrants come through Nogales on their way north. Nogales is also where many deported migrants are dropped off by U.S. Border Patrol, usually late a night.

There are massive structural forces that create the push and pull of migration, and violent policies that try to mitigate that flow. All that is visible here in Nogales. But we also saw little glimmers of hope from individuals and organizations that are building peace in these border communities by planting gardens, educating children and adults, caring for migrants, and organizing workers in maquilas (low-wage factories).

Leaders from MCC programs in Mexico and the United States convened here in Nogales earlier this month to discuss collaboration along the U.S./Mexico border. The participants representing a half dozen MCC and partner offices on both sides of the border came together under the belief that migration is an issue that must be addressed multilaterally.

The meeting was hosted by Hogar de Paz y Esperanza (HEPAC), an MCC Mexico partner that works with women and children in Nogales by providing meals, education and alternative micro-economic projects, among other work. With a small but committed staff, they have made a significant impact on the community.

MCC originally convened the Borderlands Peacebuilding Initiative three years ago to begin this work, but a number of new faces have appeared at the table since then. In addition to HEPAC, attendees came from MCC Mexico, MCC Latin America, MCC West Coast, MCC US, and Shalom Mennonite in Tucson Arizona.

The attendees visited a women’s migrate shelter in Nogales, where they heard stories from three women, two of whom had recently been deported and one who was about to make her first attempt. One of the women had children and a husband living in Arizona that she was trying to rejoin. Another had children in Honduras that she needed income to support.

On the way to the migrant shelter, the participants visited the spot where 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriquez was shot eight-times and killed on Mexican soil by the U.S. Border Patrol. The BP alleges he was throwing rocks, but even that detail is disputed. On April 10^th, HEPAC will hold an annual vigil in his memory.

The initiative is discussing early plans to expand an advocacy campaign on this issue, to ask the Border Patrol to give a public apology and change their internal policies, so similar events don’t happen again (and to prevent other less serious—but more frequent—abuses of migrants). This project is not about demonizing individual agents, but addressing the institutional violence from the agency as a whole.

The group also discussed involving MCC Guatemala in future work on the Guatemala/Mexico border. Migrants coming from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador must first cross at that border before making the long, dangerous trek to the U.S. border. With MCC Mexico workers in the South, Central and Northern regions of Mexico, the new Country Representatives are exploring ways to support Central American migrants on their journey through Mexico.

Together, the Borderlands Peacebuilding Initiative hopes to expand work in education, advocacy, direct services and mutual collaboration. Each of the MCC offices represented are working in migration issues in some form on their own, but are moving forward together in the belief that our efforts will be stronger together.

Four years after the initiative was first thought of, it seems poised to take the work to the next level. With a many new participants around the table, there was a renewed sense of energy and hope, despite the tremendous obstacles.

As we returned to our offices in Mexico City, Tucson, Chihuahua, Goshen, Fresno and Nogales, we each brought with us long lists of next steps. Within the border region we hope to grow this initiative and expand MCC’s cross-border support of education, just policy and support for migrants.