By Jessica Easthope
Marlin Medina has had a monitor on since September, and she says it feels tighter every day.
U.S. Border Patrol agents put it on when she crossed over from Mexico. She was told to head to New York City. The ankle monitor would make sure she got there and stayed.
“I feel like I’m a prisoner, like I’m being made out to be a criminal,” Medina said. “It’s humiliating and violating, I’m depressed.”
When Medina reached the United States she thought the worst of her journey was over. Along the way cartels robbed her but she gave up her belongings willingly, hoping they would spare her and not kidnap her son.
“It was terrible,” Medina said. “It was very scary. We didn’t know what they would do to us. They take kids away from you. My focus was just to do what they said and get to Mexico City where we could take the train.”
She left Venezuela to escape violence, but the Darien Gap, a stretch of jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, made her think about going back.
“It was an ugly experience,” Medina said. “We had to use ropes to cross the river and the muck. We had to climb peaks and go back down.”
More than 400,000 people have passed through that jungle this year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Almost half are children.
Wilfredo made that journey too, with a group of nearly 800 people. Only 30 made it out. The rest turned back or died.
“Eventually you start to see people who have died,” Wilfredo said. “You see women and children and pregnant women in the jungle and there’s a feeling of helplessness because in the jungle you can only look out for yourself.”
Both Wilfredo and Medina ended up at St. Michael’s Church in Sunset Park, one of several sites run by Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens.
“There are days when you feel like things are starting to settle [down] and then the numbers would increase,” said John Gonzalez, director of parish community relations at CCBQ. “Right now we’re going through one of those flows and in those moments you ask what is going on but we have to respond. Pope Francis asks us to be witnesses of mercy. It’s tiresome but we have no other choice.”
Wilfredo and Medina say they feel lucky to have made it this far.
“I feel so grateful for the assistance Catholic Charities has given me and I continue to have faith in God that I will persevere,” Medina said.
They know God will carry them even further.
The work of CCBQ is part of what Bishop Robert Brennan calls “the Catholic response” to the migrant crisis.
In a column in The Tablet, Bishop Brennan reminds his flock that Christ tells us to welcome the stranger.
That is exactly what CCBQ and various parishes in the diocese are doing for the migrants coming to New York.
He also recognizes the need to reform the systems that have caused the migrant crisis, saying the policies are neither compassionate or sustainable.
To read the bishop’s full column just go to THETABLET.Org.