“You’re Free!!” (Inside an El Paso Shelter)

Holy Family Refugee Center in El Paso supports families and indivuals who have recently arrived at our southern border, having been released after processing by Customs and Border Patrol or ICE. They are now technically able to begin their asylum claims, as well travel to unite with their families, friends, or sponsors. It will be a long, complicated process to attempt to win an asylum case, but for this moment, people are letting out a deep exhale.

Holy Family is a short-term shelter, where guests spend a few hours or up to two or three days, making their travel connections. On the way to the bus station or airport, they receive a travel bag with a sandwich and whatever has been donated, which, on the day I visited, was a bag of macadamia nuts.

If they do stay, there will be a cot to sleep on, fresh sheets, a blanket, a towel, and hygiene items. There will be access to a shower. They’ll get three meals a day, “hecho a mano” (hand made) from the kitchen, a hub of activity for volunteers. They also have access to the clothes closet, where they can pick out men’s and women’s clothing such as jeans or dress pants, possibly a jacket, a T-shirt, and maybe shoes (but good ones are rare).

Being at the shelter for a few hours brought back a lot of memories for this writer, Lyn. I helped organize and served at such a shelter several years ago at my church. We greeted people who stepped off the ICE bus, which sometimes had an armed guard, with oranges and bananas, water, and granola bars. The children always seemed to be bouncy and happy and the adults, wary. Their fears were alleviated when we told them this was a church, not an extension of U.S. federal custody. It was a house of God.

At Holy Family, however, I learned about a much more rousing welcome. One of the shelter coordinators explained: “I have them make a big shout—a grito de alegria. (a shout of joy) “’Yay!’ I tell them, ‘you’re free!’ And they get the biggest smiles on their faces, because that’s not what they expected,” says Maria Varela, one of the shelter coordinators.

A smile and a grito will go a long way.

Herself an immigrant from Cuba, Maria knows that this heartfelt welcome will help shake off some of the dust and darkness of their journeys. Holy Family’s guests can tell stories you would not want to hear about their pathways north. Sometimes, they do need to talk. This might happen in the kitchen, while women are washing and drying the dinner dishes, or preparing enchiladas.

I imagine, for a moment, traveling by any possible means, from Bolivia to El Paso. That’s the trip the woman standing in front of me tells me quite frankly that she just made. The words sink into my mind: Bolivia to El Paso.  I, who would not take one step of that trip without first buying top-of-the line hiking boots, a large, comfortable backpack, a small camp stove, some dehydrated mac and cheese, an inflatable mattress for my two-man tent with a rain fly, an assortment of insect repellants and a snakebite kit. I felt instant admiration for this courageous woman, much less for my first-world blissfully cowardly self.

Holy Family can accommodate about 30-50 people. During one of last year’s surges, they took as many as 100. The shelter is a part of the Annunciation House shelter network, directed by Ruben Garcia. A-House, recently having endured a legal attack by the Texas Attorney General, is a Catholic Worker style shelter network which has offered hospitality in El Paso for more than 40 years. Ruben maintains direct contact with ICE (U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement) every day. They tell him exactly how many people will be released, and he then coordinates with the A-House network of shelters about how many people they will be receiving. There are also several shelters outside the A House Network that either receive ICE releases or allow walk up intakes.

The second day I visited Holy Family, there was a buzz in the air, as the children waited expectantly to celebrate  “Children’s Day,” a Latin American tradition where kids receive gifts and play games all day. The shelter kitchen was buzzing with volunteers passing trays of home-made cupcakes. After marking down the ages of the children, Elisa Aguilar, the other shelter coordinator, rifled through a grocery cart of donated toys to find dolls, a mini soccer ball, a red fire truck with ladder, matchbox cars, a green dump truck, and several stuffed animals. She lined the items on a nearby counter, and the children came up one by one to select a gift. Elisa dug deep for a gift for a young teenage girl, but there was not much to be found for a girl her age. Sometimes, that is the story with primarily donated things; that’s the way it is.

What I have learned through these shelter visits parallels something I am reading about in essays by Henri Nouwen, a late Dutch Catholic priest, known for his books about being God’s beloved. Listen to his words:

“Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people
when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life,” (Life of the Beloved)

I was thinking later about the welcoming grito. We didn’t do that at the shelter where I worked because we were all Anglos. We didn’t understand about freedom. So I would like to offer my own sort of grito, that I hope will also inspire:

“El amor inquebrantable del Señor nunca cesa; Sus milagros nunca terminan; son nuevos cada mañana; grande es Tu fidelidad”. (Lamentaciones 3:22-23)

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His miracles never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Story By Lyn McKinley, Grants and Development, Abara

P.S. would you like to learn more about how Abara supports shelter leaders like the ones described here? Click here for a summary!