Asylum is dead. Humanitarians are forever.
He broke both feet, then he found wings
Hello readers,
You expect book content from me and I will deliver. Today, can I tell you a story first? It may be too long for email, so please click on the title to be taken to the browser version and read the whole thing. Book list follows.
Casa Alitas, Tucson’s welcome center for asylum seekers released by Customs and Border Patrol, closed this week. Over five years, more than half a million people who otherwise would have been released to the streets received humanitarian aid at county shelters like this one. In most cases, this meant a few boxed meals, a shower, a night or two of shelter while arranging travel to a sponsor in another city. For men, a chance to swap the bright orange shoes worn in detention for something less likely to attract attention on a plane.
Catholic Community Services, county officials and a cadre of volunteers made these brief transitions possible on a warehouse scale, offering up to 650 beds at the main shelter and receiving as many as 1,500 asylum seekers passing through in a single day. They developed a system for managing chaos. And also, they were humane.
The reason for the closure is simple. As reported by
, CBP has not delivered any asylum seekers from the U.S.-Mexico border since January 20. The fundamental promise of asylum in the United States for those credibly fleeing danger is, for now, dead. But the impact of the staff and volunteers at Casa Alitas deserves to be remembered.The best way I know how is to share this story. Initials used herein to protect the identity of a vulnerable person.
The jump
Dressed in camouflage, then 21-year-old L.C. straddled a steel sheet atop the border fence near Nogales. Half his body in the U.S, the other half in Mexico. It was February 5, 2022.
The two men he called his guides had hoisted him to the top, his shoes on each of their shoulders as they climbed to a height of eight meters, maybe 10. He’d be the first of the dozen they’d bring across that morning.
Now L.C. saw two layers of coiled razor wire stretched between him and the ground. Where he’d crossed yesterday, a gap had been cut through the barrier. His thin body easily slid through as guides on the other side supported his feet. But here, the wires remained intact.
¡Salta! Jump!
Two nights before, L.C. had a nightmare. He’d awakened convinced he was dying. Now it seemed like a premonition. “What’s going to happen to me?” he said.
You’re about to achieve your dream. No big deal. Jump.
Trembling, he willed himself to obey the guide. But he couldn’t move.
There’s no time. Here comes the patrol.
He tried twice more. He couldn’t let go.
Jump. It’s the only way. Or we’ll leave you here.
It had been 33 days since L.C. left his home in the highlands of Guatemala. He’d spent 15 of them detained by Mexican immigration officials without access to the outdoors then been returned to Guatemala, where he started his journey again. He’d been caught the day prior during his first crossing into the U.S. After looking at the fake Mexican papers he’d been given, the Border Patrol had let him walk back into Nogales, Sonora. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if they caught him again.
He’d make it to the U.S. this time––or never.
Eyes closed. Mind blank. He sensed his body drop through the air.
Hitting the ground, he felt his feet swell. His ankles flopped. His legs crumpled. Then: only pain.
The first Border Patrol agent to reach him spoke some Spanish. He said he was a medic. We have to get you to the hospital, he said. He checked on L.C.’s pain as he radioed for back up. Eight to ten more agents surrounded L.C..
Over the next ridge, the guides hustled the group across safely.
The journey
In November 2018, deployed U.S. soldiers added coils of razor wire to walls at the Nogales port of entry. Before 2019, fencing along the U.S. border with Mexico ranged from 8 to 18 feet high. Secondary fencing added as a part of the Trump administration’s program–– intended to make the fence unclimbable–– increased the height to 30 feet in many locations. As the barriers rose, so did migrant injuries and deaths.
Increased physical barriers plus decreased legal means of entry result in migrants spending more time on the turf of organized smuggling rings, incurring not only bodily risks but also high stakes debts as smugglers leverage these conditions for profit. The American Immigration Council estimates 270,000 people from around the world who have made similar journeys, waiting for asylum appointments and a chance to present themselves legally, are currently stranded at temporary shelters in Mexico as a result of the new executive orders.
L.C. is the third of six living siblings of a family of indigenous campesinos who hold land in Purulha, Guatemala. At 16, after completing the equivalent of the 8th grade, he left school for a job cultivating tomatoes near the Biotopo del Quetzal, a popular tourist destination dedicated to preserving the habitat of the resplendent quetzal, Guatemala’s national bird.
From the tomato fields, he often noticed a group of quetzals. Eight males, known for their vibrant green color and their extraordinarily long tail feathers, and eight females. Young ones. The way they played in the water reminded L.C. of a human family.
At 18, L.C. got a job at the egg farm where his father worked. They traveled to work four or more hours by bus and slept in a bunkhouse at the farm, six days on, then two days of rest.
L.C. took care of laying hens— 11,000 to16,000 of them at a time— from their first lay until they’d sell them to locals for meat a year later. He got up as early as 3 a.m. to feed them, bag their droppings for fertilizer, collect and sort the eggs. He did this for three years. When he talks about it, he smiles.
During that time, L.C. gave his mother most of his money for family expenses. But he kept some for himself too. He wanted to buy a motorcycle. His parents told him it was too dangerous. They’d offered him a quarter of their land––building a house would be a better investment, they said.
Determined to have his motorcycle, he kept saving for it. But when it was time to buy it, his conscience ruled. He built a two-room house instead. He started sleeping there when he was home. He wasn’t planning to go anywhere.
A debt incurred
L.C.’s oldest brother O. lives in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. He left home at 17, when L.C. was just a child. When I asked what he does in Nogales, L.C. told me he’s associated with bad people and wouldn’t say more. L.C.’s father has a sister in Kentucky, an aunt who L.C. never met. One day, O. called. He’d heard from this aunt that there was an opportunity for a trip to the U.S. They both thought it was time for L.C. to head north.
L.C. wasn’t interested. He knew people who had gone but he hadn’t imagined that for himself. His parents also advised against it. Anyway, he didn’t have the money for a trip.
His brother and aunt convinced him the money wouldn’t be a problem. No deposit required. He’d give his word. In Kentucky, they had a job in the poultry industry for him. The Guatemalan minimum wage for agricultural workers is about $65 per week. In the U.S., he’d make that in about half a day. And the exchange rate from the U.S. would be favorable.
Working at the farm, L.C. was already away from home most of the time. If he left, he could earn enough to ensure his three younger siblings could complete their education. In December 2021, he agreed to go.
For the two crossings from Guatemala to Mexico and then the two from Mexico to the United States, L.C. committed to repay 110,000 quetzales––the currency is named after the national bird–– the equivalent of more than $14,000.
Carnada
L.C. likely landed on his heels, then caught himself with his left hand as he fell backwards. The medical records note closed calcaneus fractures in both of his feet and a fracture of the scaphoid bone in his left wrist “as a result of a fall from the U.S.-Mexico border wall.”
When the Border Patrol apprehended L.C. after he jumped, they found the Mexican papers. An ambulance took him to a hospital in Tucson. L.C. had never seen a doctor before. He waited hours in the emergency room, in physical and emotional pain, unable to correct the record. He hadn’t fallen. He’d jumped as his smugglers used him as carnada: bait to draw the agents so the others could cross undeterred.
He woke up from anesthesia with casts up to both knees, a brace on his left arm. An official from the Mexican consulate asked to arrange a wheelchair for L.C.’s transport to Mexico realized he was using an alias. Now he’d face a possible return trip to Guatemala, where his debt equated to nearly five years’ local earnings.
The hospital discharged L.C. to the Border Patrol and they transferred him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. The next day, ICE interviewed L.C. about his motive for coming to the U.S.
L.C. knew his debt and his willingness to work wouldn’t be enough reason to justify his presence. He mentioned a dispute with a tough character, a former co-worker at the egg farm, about a girlfriend they had in common. I’ll cut you to pieces, stuff you in a bag and throw you in the Río Plátano, he’d said. The guy’s associates had shown up at his mother’s house, asking for money, looking for him.
Did he have anyone in the U.S. who would sponsor him? He gave the agent the phone number of his aunt in Kentucky. He’d be released if his aunt agreed. Otherwise, they’d start deportation proceedings.
L.C.’s aunt answered the call. Officer J. Laub released L.C. on his recognizance, with orders to report to the ICE duty officer in Louisville, Kentucky on February 24.
When you’re not broken
L.C.’s next stop was Casa Alitas. The average stay at the shelter is three days. L.C. expected to leave soon, too. A Venezuelan named Yulia helped cover his casts so he could shower. She arranged a call to his family. Through an acquaintance who could cross the border freely, his brother sent L.C. $900 to buy a plane ticket.
The border agent who spoke with L.C.’s aunt hadn’t mentioned his condition. Once he purchased his ticket, he sent a photo of himself in a wheelchair with his casts. After some time, she replied. She was very sorry, but they wouldn’t be able to receive him like this.
Her husband said: come when you’re not so broken.
Until then, L.C. hadn’t cried. Yulia brought one of the site leads to him. You’ll stay here until you can walk, he remembers her saying. We will help you. You will leave here walking.
Bread and sorrow
Las penas, con pan son buenas. With bread, sorrows taste good. Alicia Englebert was the night site lead at Casa Alitas. She gave extra attention to guests with medical needs. She said it’s a part of her culture— she’s a U.S. citizen who was born in Mexico— to talk about worries over bread so that they disappear. She’d take L.C. a cup of coffee and some bread every night.
They’d talk about his life in Guatemala and his goals: to help his father retire, make sure his sisters went to school. And his worries: the broken relationship with his aunt, whether he would heal, where he would go if he did. How he’d pay his debt. He shared that he’d had no choice but to jump, but never complained about his pain. “He shines a special light,” Alicia said. “It draws people to him.”
One of those people was C.W., then 25 and a volunteer assigned to Casa Alitas through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. He noticed L.C. putting in a full day volunteering himself: folding clothes, stuffing envelopes, and packing snacks for those leaving for the airport. C.W. also noticed L.C.’s medical needs weren’t being met. He found a way to get him physical therapy, managed his appointments, and drove him there.
At first, these drives were quiet. But one day, C.W. planned a different outing. He stuffed L.C.’s wheelchair into the backseat of his Prius and drove an hour to Mt. Lemmon, in the Catalina National Forest outside Tucson. The trees and fresh air lifted L.C.’s spirits. On the way down the mountain, the two bonded.
Lori Tochihara coordinated the kitchen volunteers at Casa Alitas. She was known for responding with a smile, “This is not the Hyatt!” when guests knocked on the kitchen door for extras. But she’d bring L.C. a fruit salad or a bag from In-N-Out. Still, after more than a month of shelter food, L.C. wanted to eat something homemade. He asked C.W.: Can I cook?
C.W.’s house wasn’t wheelchair accessible, so his roommates carried L.C. into the house in a dining chair. L.C. cooked a huge pot of chicken soup to share, then relaxed in a recliner while the housemates bemoaned a University of Arizona tournament loss. L.C. had never seen basketball before. Es algo nuevo para mi. It’s something new for me, he said.
The alitas effect
After this, L.C. began to make rapid progress with his recovery. Englebert calls this the “alitas effect.” Under the care of the staff and volunteers, even the most difficult cases began to heal.
In April 2022, about 15 people attended L.C.’s 22nd birthday party at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant. C.W. brought the cake, melting on the front seat of his Prius. In the photos, L.C. beams from his chair.
All the progress brought L.C. closer to his goal: to walk again. And closer to the unknown. Where would he go?
C.W. loved working at Casa Alitas. He also ached with it. He’d call his mom, S.W., to process. As the number of asylum seekers at Casa Alitas increased, so did the pressures on the people supporting them. S. noticed the challenges of L.C.’s circumstances both exasperated and inspired her son. He and his co-workers felt determined to find L.C. a place to land, but they seemed to be running out of time.
She prayed. And then she planned.
Back on his feet
Alicia remembers it like this. One day in late April, she arrived for her shift. A volunteer named Paris approached her and said, “I have a surprise for you.” In walked L.C., wearing an air boot on his right foot, beaming and giving the thumbs up. Alicia knows L.C. is a full-grown man but in the video she took, she can be heard saying “Our baby is walking now!”
C.W. was sitting on the roof of his house watching the sunset when S. called with a question that brought him to tears. What if she and his father could offer a home to L.C.?
C.W. told me all the asylum seekers he met in his work at Casa Alitas, and his subsequent job as a case manager with an organization that resettles refugees, deserve help. But L.C. is the only one he would have felt comfortable introducing to his parents with an offer like this in mind.
His parents prayed with their church for guidance. They met L.C. over Zoom and discussed expectations. That June, they greeted him at their local airport with a hymn. Let us hope by some good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
What it means to be family
Es algo nuevo para mi. Many new things make up L.C.’s life with his padrinos, as he calls C.W.’s parents. Learning English at the community college. Talk therapy. Walking the family dog. Working as a chef’s assistant. Hiking. Having a bank account. Coping with an internet scam. A quiet house, without children.
But before-things stayed with him too. He used to refer to what happened to him as el accidente but after therapy, he prefers el salto—the jump. His pain greatly improved, but also limited his capacity for the hard outdoor labor he prefers. He sometimes walks with a little hitch in his step.
His sponsors paid off $2,700 of formal debt to a Guatemalan bank, to alleviate L.C.’s distress about interest payments. He repays them from wages.
After they did this, he stopped mentioning debt to them. But he told me in April 2023 that he still owed $1,200 a month in interest on the $14,000 informal debt from his crossing. He showed me how he made payments through two electronic apps. He claimed he and his parents don’t know who receives these payments, that they go to an anonymous Guatemalan account number––but he worried about the impact on his family in Guatemala if he neglected to pay. He estimated it would take him three years to pay off his debt.
He longs to see his family again. Without residency or a visa, if he leaves the U.S. he won’t be allowed to return. With scant evidence of credible fear in his case, and a low approval rate of just 8% for Guatemalan humanitarian visas in 2023, lawyers discouraged L.C. from persuing as a path to legal residency after all.
When a victim is trafficked by family members, lawyers colloquially call these “Cinderella cases.” For example: an uncle who pays to bring his nephew, and on arrival requires the nephew to pay off the coyote. These cases can be difficult to identify because victims may protect their traffickers.
Lawyers L.C. and the sponsor family consulted initially thought they might be able to make his case for a T visa, a program with an annual quota intended for victims of human trafficking in the United States, or U visa, a similar program for victims of other crimes. As a condition of his visa application, lawyers wanted L.C. to agree to cooperate with an investigation of his aunt in Kentucky. He wasn’t willing. Family is family.
The quetzal
As a part of his new life L.C. took up drawing to ease the boredom of not having many young friends or speaking much English. Drawing takes his mind off his stress about the debt and not knowing when––or if–– he’ll see his family again. He erases very little when he draws. He prefers to keep moving his hand until he likes the result.
He draws scenes from el campo––a mare nudging her foal, its sleepy head resting on its forelegs. Or birds. A drawing of a bright green one with flared wings, elongated tail and a red breast bears his name in bold, tropical letters.
It’s a quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. A symbol of the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, the Mesoamerican deity associated with agricultural renewal and resurrection. Its extraordinary tail feathers were once traded as currency.
By law, it can’t be domesticated.
I reported most of this story freelance, at my own expense, in 2023. It was never published for reasons I won’t get into here. If you’re glad to have read it, you can support my work by sharing it, by liking to show me you’ve read this far, or by leaving a comment. Of course, upgrading your subscription is always appreciated.
The books
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. Longlisted for the National Book Award, this twist on the campus novel follows a year in the life of undocumented Harvard student Catalina Ituralde as she prepares to graduate into a world unprepared for her talents.
Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León. This character-driven book explores the real lives and work of the smugglers moving migrants across Mexico, as chronicled by an anthropologist who embedded with them over the course of years. National Book Award winner for non-fiction.
Everyone Who is Gone is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer. A deeply reported history of decades of misguided policy and corruption, this book weaves together the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been forever altered by political conflict and violence with perspectives of American activists and government officials responsible for the country’s tangled immigration policy.
Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora. A Salvadoran boy embarks on a 3,000 mile, two month journey to the U.S.-Mexico border to reunite with his mother and a father he barely remembers on the other side. Alone among a group of strangers, he experiences a treacherous journey but also unexpected kindness and love.
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Winner of the Aspen Words Literary Prize and Finalist for the Booker Prize. In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, Nadia and Saeed embark on a love affair. When violence escalates, they find a door that can whisk them away and they step through to an alien and uncertain future.
Thank you for writing and publishing this story. So valuable for us all to understand the truth of this issue.
I really appreciated this essay! Can't believe I forgot to comment but I so appreciated you for sharing this