It seems like just yesterday when my son and I together with Dr. Eva Moya, a professor at UTEP bought a Magic Chef freezer at Home Depot in El Paso, wrestled it into my car and transported it to the migrant shelter, Respettrans in Juárez.
That was actually August 2021.
Little did we know that this dilapidated looking building just across the international bridge would at times hold as many as 370 migrants, all waiting patiently for their asylum applications. Or that the migrants themselves would run this shelter, given the fact that the founder and leader, Grecia Herrera is a nurse and had to work a day job to survive.
Little did we know also that an enormous network of support would develop, led by Dr. Moya in El Paso and a non-profit in Placitas founded by Jack and Cheryl Ferrell and supported by donors from all over New Mexico, including many in Santa Fe where I live.
Back in 2020 when we first met the Ferrell’s, they were taking small carloads of goods to the border; their program and network of volunteers has grown enormously and in late March, for example, they took 4,000 pounds of donations including 918 pounds of beans and rice in a huge U Haul truck.
The shelter situation has changed dramatically, however, with many closures due to the closing of the border. Punto Beta and Torre de Oro in Palomas, Mexico are closed. Colores United in Deming is closed. On April 21, I visited La Casa de la Misericordia in Nogales, a superb shelter but the only one still open in a city of over 300,000. The once-booming shelter at the Sacred Heart Church in El Paso is also closed.
What to do now with not only these empty or near-empty facilities and, more important, the dedicated and persistent leaders who managed them? This array of shelters offered safety and security to hundreds of migrants at a fraction of the cost of the corporate facilities we have contracted with in the United States.
Logically, President Trump could have built on the successes of the Biden administration in dramatically reducing the flow of migrants to the US. Biden:
This obviously hasn’t happened and the few remaining migrants I have spoken with have often been waiting up to a year for their asylum claims. For example, Emily Maldonado Correa, part of a family from Michoacán, Mexico will have her baby at Respettrans within weeks.
What about caring for women who have been abused as an alternative for a shelter like Respettrans.? The United Nations News reported on December 5, 2024 that “With more than 2,526 women murdered in the past three decades - from 1993 to 2023 – and hundreds disappeared, Ciudad Juárez remains Mexico’s deadliest city for women.”
At Vision in Action, the mental asylum on the very west edge of the city, there are about 120 patients in all, a number of whom are young women who have been brought there because of drug issues. There is no aftercare for these young women, however; no one to check on them when they return home to make sure they aren’t getting back into the drug life. As a result, two of them have been murdered at night in Juárez.
Respettrans could be an alternative, being in the downtown area near medical services as well as being the recipient of so much aid from the Dignity Mission.
The key is recognizing that the border may be restricted for years, even for those who follow the law and, therefore, finding new uses not only for these now-closed shelters but also for the creative and persistent humanitarians who were their leaders.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Sante Fe-based writer and humanitarian Morgan Smith. Smith has been making monthly trips to the border for the last 15 years. He can be reached at Morgan-smith@comcast.net.
Editor's Noe: The above column was penned a couple of weeks ago. Since then, Emily Maldonado Correa, from Michoacán, has given birth to Zamary. Here they are, below, with Zamary just eight days old, at the Respettrans migrant shelter on Friday, June 13.
