After cooking and serving lunch to the asylum seekers, I took care of a
baby boy from Central America while his young mother chose new clothes,
underwear, and was given hygiene supplies and a towel, and took her
first shower in several weeks.
The baby was a merry little soul. At
lunch, he'd been chuckling and snorting while his mom tried to spoon
orange-colored baby food into his mouth and the spoon nailed his nose
instead. (His mom laughed, too, when I did.) He was laughing and
wiggling when he was handed over to me, and instantly grabbed my green
jade heart pendant.
When another volunteer readied the baby's bath and
we stripped him down to his brown skin, he giggled. When we put some
tear-free bubbles in the water and I sang "Rubber Ducky, you're the
one," he grinned toothlessly and splashed and tried to do a header into
the 6-inch-deep water upon seeing the drain at the bottom of the little
tub. After the rinse cycle and a gentle towel drying, we put him on the
changing table, and he laughed at the freedom of being Nakie Baby. He
cried at the diaper and onesie dressing, perhaps because he'd had such a
long, exciting day without a nap.
This is a lucky baby. He wasn't
separated from his mommy and he wasn't caged or institutionalized. He
can't tell you his story, but I will testify that this precious child
with his smiles and wiggles, his joy at splashing in the bath, and
staying with his mother, should be repeated with EVERY BABY, EVERY CHILD
in the care of our country. He's not a political pawn or illegal
immigrant.
He's God's child. He's our child.
God bless them all.
*****
Christy K Robinson is author of
these books (click on the highlighted titles):
Many people have asked how they can help support the great needs of the men, women, and children who are fleeing government violence, drug gangs, rape, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, climate-caused drought, and grinding poverty in Central America.
Here are my suggestions.
Volunteers of all ages, even children, are eager to prepare and serve food to the asylum seekers. Bilingual volunteers help us "un poquito Espanol" folks to communicate with our guests.
These are suggestions for tax-deductible charities that directly work with asylum seekers who have been processed and released by ICE. Click the colored links to go to their donation pages.
International Rescue Committee: "Since 1994, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Phoenix has
worked to provide vital services for refugees, immigrants, vulnerable
populations, and the Phoenix community as a whole. America’s proudest
moments have always been when we welcomed those fleeing life-threatening
violence and persecution and offered them an o pportunity to restart
their lives." Website: https://www.rescue.org/united-states/phoenix-az
Lutheran Social Services organizes volunteers, works with ICE to route buses to host churches, solicits in-kind donations, accepts new clothing and underwear, provides travel assistance and social work, and much more. Some local
groups have an Amazon wishlist for supplies that you can pay for and
have delivered here, where they're needed. There's a group that provides
"burner" phones, and another that fills backpacks with essential
supplies for immediate travel to sponsor families.
The mobile showers trailer is set up at host sites so immigrants can have their first shower in weeks.
Doctor interviews a family just released from ICE detention. Faces have been obscured for their security.
Red Cross provides cots, blankets, towels, hygiene packs, diapers, etc.
One of the greatest needs of asylum seekers and immigrants is for pro bono or low-cost immigration legal services. Immigrant Legal Resource Center is one of many such agencies, and they have a high rating with Charity Navigator.
If you’re not quite sure where to donate, ActBlue has set up a couple of donation portals to help kids at the borderand families separated and detained. Your donation will be split between roughly a dozen organizations all at once.
There's a group that is unrelated to what we do (we help asylum seekers processed and released by ICE) that has been in the news lately, namely, No More Deaths. You may recall that some of their volunteers have been arrested and tried for their humanitarian efforts and for trespassing on federal land. They leave jugs of lifesaving water along desert trackways, so immigrants who are walking through the harsh Sonoran Desert can find sustenance. Border Patrol and "hatriot" groups are known for destroying these water caches.
On a more local level, my local group of volunteers has a PayPal account for the purchase of rotisserie chickens, boxes of fresh fruit, and ziploc bags for the travel food packs. Most of the cost of the food we prepare comes from our own wallets, though. And the time necessary to cook the food, drive it to the host site, and serve it is not something we seek compensation for--it's our privilege.
