Frontera de Cristo

Note:  I was at Frontera de Cristo from Feb. 23 through Mar. 10, 2020.  So this post is quite late in getting sent out.  Lots has happened since!!!!!  However, I did want everyone to read about this experience at the border and share a little of what I learned.  Frontera de Cristo is a wonderful organization.  When our church gets back to having actual coffee hours, and not just virtual ones, I'm planning to send some of the delicious organic, more-than-fair-trade coffee from Cafe Justo for us to try, hoping we can begin to buy all our coffee from them, and contribute to their efforts to support farmers in Chiapas and workers in Agua Prieta being able to stay in their home communities and not need to migrate, with all the danger and uncertainty that entails. 

The sign on their van says, "Building relationships and understanding across borders."

Frontera de Cristo (FDC) is a bi-national mission of the Presbyterian churches of the US and Mexico which has worked in Douglas AZ and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico for over 30 years.  Their board, staff and every aspect of their work is bi-national - a collaboration across the border.  These two cities grew up together, sharing across the border every day.  When the border was just a barbed wire fence, it was pretty easy for people to go back and forth.  Kids went to school games on the other side, people shopped and took their groceries home, worked on one side and lived on the other.  As the border became more restrictive, with a pretty fence, it got harder, but people still found ways to go to weddings, christenings and other events.  With the advent of NAFTA, however, the situation in Mexico changed dramatically.  Mexico agreed to stop all agricultural subsidies which had allowed Mexican farmers to survive droughts and bad years.  With NAFTA, US and Canadian farmers were still getting subsidies, putting many Mexican farmers out of business.  Coffee prices dropped dramatically because of a world wide glut on the market, due to the US having introduced coffee growing in Vietnam after the war.  Many farmers had no choice but to migrate away from their homes and communities to the border where the maquiadoras provided employment, at barely subsistence wages.  And many of these migrants then entered the US without papers for the chance to make a living.  As the numbers of migrants escalated, the border was closed firmly in El Paso, San Diego and other large cities, forcing people to come through smaller cities like Douglas.  The influx overwhelmed the areas around Douglas, too.  And now we have a wall.

To me it is an obscenity.  Border patrol sitting in their truck waiting for someone to try to get over.?

On the right you can see the pretty wall that faces Douglas AZ.  People can drive along that side of their city and not have to see the razor wire.  

When smaller cities were closed with walls like this, the deliberate policy was to push people to migrate through deserts and over mountains, where the natural terrain would be a barrier to stop them.  And now, the 30' wall is being built across the barren places, and right through a world heritage UNESCO site in one direction and a nature preserve with many endangered species in the other direction.  

The new fence is even taller than the one between Douglas and Agua Prieta.  Rev. Mark Adams (co-director of Frontero de Cristo) showing the new construction to a delegation.

Talking with a Border Patrol agent, the Cartel have used lots of different strategies to get drugs across the border.  Sometimes they will send a coyote with a large group of migrants to one spot to make agents congregate there, while they bring drugs across at another location which now has fewer agents.  At one point they had cannons that could shoot a 300 pound bale of marijuana over the wall and deep into US land.  It only took them minutes to arrive at the border, set up the cannon and collect the bale on the other side.  The wall has alot to do with stopping drugs.  Now that marijuana is legal in parts of the US, the drug traffic has changed to heroin and fentanyl, fueling our epidemic of opiate addictions and overdose deaths.  

The policy of forcing migrants into the most inhospitable parts of the border terrain has resulted in thousands of deaths.  Frontera de Cristo joins with other religious groups to memorialize those who have died every Friday at 5PM, on the US side of the border crossing.  Each cross has the name of someone whose body was found in the desert, with their birth date if known and the date their body was found.  Many crosses say "No Identificado" - no identification.  Who they were will never be known, nor will their families ever know what became of them.  

The people at the vigil take a cross and read the name loudly.  Then everyone there say "Presente!", and the cross is set against the edge of the sidewalk, until there are 2 blocks of crosses, 4' apart.  This is only a small part of the many, many crosses that have been made.  At least for those whose names are spoken each week, someone is remembering them.  

After a short prayer service for these migrants who have died, the crosses are carefully gathered up again.  All this while 5 o'clock traffic going into Mexico passes by.  

Douglas AZ and Agua Prieta, Sonora are sister cities.  Douglas started out as a company town for a copper smelter when there were active copper mines in the area.  Managers and foremen lived on the US side while the Mexican workers lived in Agua Prieta.  Everyone went back and forth all the time. Even today, Mark Adams and his wife Miriam (who is from Mexico) live on the Mexican side.  

Their son goes to school there and their daughter is now going to high school on the US side. (The US high school has a pool and she is a competitive swimmer.)  For people like the Adamses, crossing the border is a reality they have to manage multiple times a day.  You can walk across and back with US ID pretty quickly, leaving your car on one side, and being picked up on the other.  To get from the US to Mexico side in a car doesn't take too long - from 10 to 30 minutes depending on the time of day.  However, coming from the Mexico to US side can easily take 45 minutes up to an hour and a half.  There is even a local TV station which just has a camera pointed at the street outside the border gate, so you can quickly see how congested it is when you want to cross.  

You can see people on the other side of the fence waiting to walk thru security into the US. 

The more I came to understand the history of the border, decisions made by both US political parties over decades, and economic factors that are global in scope, the more I realized this border is a complicated thing.  It's easy to point a finger at one person, or one side, but it's more complicated than that.  The reality for people who live here, though, is simple and daily:  how do these two communities respond to this border running between their cities?

Douglas is a quiet town now with a couple big grocery stores, a Walmart and mall, one grand old hotel (The Gadsen), not much night life (not even a movie theater) and a population of 17,000.  Agua Prieta, on the other hand, is a really lively place with tons of restaurants, clubs, businesses of all types, and a population of 84,000.  It is also controlled by the Sonoran Cartel which specializes in drugs and migrant trafficking and extortion.  The Cartel doesn't involve itself in any other aspects of the life of Agua Prieta, and there is no competing cartel to cause the kinds of violence and murder that have plagued much of Mexico.  As a result, Agua Prieta is a pretty safe city to live in, unless you're a migrant.  

One of two town squares in Agua Prieta.

Agua Prieta has painted murals on their side of the wall, and has a sidewalk, grass and trees all along it.  Very different look than the US side.  

An open door painted in the wall.  

Frontera de Cristo works with a number of sister organizations to help the migrants coming to the border.  Who comes to the border has changed rapidly and unpredictably over the last year, leaving these agencies having to adapt quickly.  When I was there, only Mexican nationals seeking asylum could present themselves at our border for an initial "credible risk" interview, during which they would explain why they had fled their homes and wouldn't be safe to return.  Migrants coming to Agua Prieta for this purpose first have to get on a list and wait for their initial interview.  CAME, which is a shelter for 45 migrants, has been tasked with keeping the list.  When there are more than 45 migrants waiting (there were about 300 on the list when I was there), they have to find other places to stay in Agua Prieta and hope to avoid running afoul of the Cartel.  When a family gets close to the top of the list, they move into CAME where it is safe from the Cartel, there are dormitories, meals and English classes.  

I went with Katelyn, a US intern who teaches the children English every morning, and played educational games with the kids who weren't working with her and their parents, all very eager to learn English.  

This is the outdoor courtyard at CAME.  I waited to take the picture until no one in the photo would be recognizable.  I didn't want to show their faces in case they are afraid to be recognized by the Cartel.  

Once they have reached the very top of the list, the families go and wait to be interviewed, right outside the border gate in The Tent, which is really just a black plastic covering over half the sidewalk.  The families may have to wait there as long as 2 or 3 days before they are called for their interview.  

The Tent.

While they are staying in The Tent, families can be brought by volunteers to the Migrant Resource Center nearby, where they can use the bathroom, take a shower and have a meal, in safety.  There are toys and crafts for the children there, too.  

The volunteer's vest says Accompanying Migrants.  

I spent an afternoon at the Migrant Resource Center with a delegation of people visiting from a church in Nashville TN.  They had crafts to share with a beautiful family of migrants who were there.  A young father and mother and their two precious daughters, 3 and 5.  We didn't ask them what brought them to the border or take their pictures.  They are very likely fleeing the Cartel and wouldn't want to be identified.  Hard to think of these beautiful, delicate children having had to migrate across Mexico and then, did they get into the US?  We'll never know where they are or if they are safe.  

Volunteers outside the Migrant Resource Center.  

FDC also supports a Community Center in a poor neighborhood in Agua Prieta with enrichment classes for children struggling in school.  Katelyn was a teacher there every afternoon, and I joined a delegation from a Memphis church playing with the kids between classes.  

Frontero de Cristo also has partnered with some Mexican farmers to create a wonderful cooperative called Cafe Justo, which links coffee farmers in Chiapas with roasting and shipping of their coffee in Agua Prieta.  This allows the coffee farmers to receive a living wage for their coffee by eliminating the middle men who were making all the profit before this cooperative was formed.  Because the cooperative manages all aspects of coffee production from the farm to roasting to shipping, it is even better than free trade.  Because of the cooperative many farmers were able to stay in Chiapas, or even to return there, not needing to migrate to support their families.  This is a different and powerful way to address the problem of migrants coming to the US border.  

There is a lovely cafe in Agua Prieta where you can purchase a cup or bag of coffee, too.

Daniel, who founded Cafe Justo, roasting beans.

The fragrant beans pouring out of the roaster.  

All their beans are grown organically, and the decaf is water decaffeinated.  This coffee is delicious!

While I was volunteering for FDC, I mainly helped Mark begin the planning for a commercial kitchen to be built for Cafe Justo y Mas, so that they would be able to serve meals in the cafe.  FDC also supports a drug rehab center in Agua Prieta and employs people in recovery in the cafe.  Eventually the commercial kitchen will be able to do catering and employ more of the folks in recovery, teaching them skills they can use to support themselves later.  

My two weeks volunteering for Frontero de Cristo were a remarkable time of learning about this border, and meeting people on both sides.  I'm deeply grateful to Mark and Miriam and everyone at FDC for giving me the opportunity to be part of their thoughtful mission.  Every aspect of their work is infused with true Christian values of humility, inclusion and love.