An Idea Whose Time Has Come

I served a year and a half as a Christian missionary among many illegal Californian Mexicans. I will describe what life is like for them. Many of them have never had the opportunity to learn English and do not have a voice for themselves, so I will speak for them.

Couple Deported Shortly After Getting Married and Baptized

Most of them spend their days working in the "jardineria" or farms, flower, or fruit fields. Others spend long, tireless hours on oil rigs, short-term construction projects, and menial labor like trash removal, hotel staff, restaurant staff, or custodial staff. There is very little honor in one's profession--a job is simply a tool of survival. They will frequently work 12 or more hours a day, rarely taking time for recreation and most have never experienced a vacation. Many become homeless with layoffs and turn to drugs, gangs, and other coping mechanisms to deal with loss. This creates a cycle of dysfuncitonal families and more of the same.

A common meal will be rice, beans, tortillas, and carne asada--the very cheapest meal possible. Queso fresco is popular because the process of making it is simple and therefore it is the cheapest cheese available. While undernourished, it is common that "Mexican mamas" are overweight because although undernourished, food provides the only affordable pleasure while facing daily stresses of single motherhood due to their spouses being deported and never having enough to get by.

Many of illegal immigrants have fled states like Juarez, a Mexican state ridden with drug cartels. Back in their homeland, there is much corruption in the government, poverty, continual violence, and civil war. Most suffer from various causes of PTSD and yet never have a hope of seeing a therapist or a counselor to combat the effects of traumatization.

Those that have been lucky enough to escape the all-seeing eye of the "migra" or immigration officers while crossing the border live in daily fear of being discovered and deported back to a displaced state. There is no life for them back in Mexico--no family, no profession, no money. If they are deported, they are sent to Tijuana, where they will await a miracle that someday they will be able to be reunited with their loved ones again, which is nothing but a fantasy since it takes 10 or more years to process a green card and there is no guarantee of approval.

Two Children Whose Father Had Been Deported

One man that we were teaching suddenly disappeared and his girlfriend lost contact with him entirely. She knew he had been deported, but there was no way of reaching him. She spent weeks in desperate prayer that she would just be able to know what happened to him. Several days later he showed up back at their house and told his story. He had been deported and set free back in Tijuana. He had to come up with some money to pay a porter to join a guided group across the border. As they were crossing through the terribly hot desert terrain (and it was summer), the "migra" were rumored to be nearby. The group scattered and he was left entirely alone in the desert, having no idea how to get back and no idea which direction would take him across the border. He found himself becoming dangerously dehydrated and had run completely out of food. He didn't eat for several days. Wandering around the wilderness, by the grace of God he finally managed to find signs of human life and made his way across the border. He hitchhiked his way back to his girlfriend and his two children that were terrified that they had lost their father forever.

Others have not been so lucky. My heart has broken over the fact that so many of my dear friends have been separated forever from their loved ones because they have been deported with very little hope of ever seeing their loved ones again. They wait in Tijuana, praying for a miracle that someday they will be able to live together in harmony without fear of being separated at any moment from their family.

Most illegal Mexican immigrants are refugees. When we think about the Mexican "problem", do we ask ourselves these questions? Why would so many flee their homeland in droves? What is going on in Mexico that is so terrible that families would live their entire lives separated from each other?

We have seen Mexican immigration as a threat, but as we ignore the devastation that is happening all around us and literally build a wall around ourselves, we don't realize that we are cutting off a part of ourselves. They are us and we are them. We cannot cut them off without cutting off a part of ourselves.

Until we begin to see others as a part of ourselves, we will continue remain separate and disunited. We will continue to see wars and rumors of wars and they will become more frequent. What can we do to restore unity as a human race? What can we do to heal the broken hearts of our war survivors instead of breaking their hearts even more with our rejection and fear of them?

I can barely wait for the return of the King. He will set everything right. It is only through a true understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ that the Earth will be healed from selfishness, misunderstanding, fear, and violence. It will not be long I predict before we will realize our desperate need for a Savior and will call him back into our experience here on this planet so that he can show us how to live together in harmony, love, and peace.

"Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come." Victor Hugo