This story was originally printed in the fall 2018 version of Fellowship! Magazine.

By Ashleigh Bugg

The children’s detention center is housed in an old Walmart building in Brownsville, Texas. The former big box retailer can hold roughly 1,500 children who have been separated from their parents, many against their will.

“The detention centers have been around for years,” said CBF field personnel Diann Berry who works in the town of Weslaco, near the Texas-Mexico border. “l was born and raised in Texas. You used to be able to go in detention centers and volunteer and do things like read or sing to the kids. Lately, nobody gets in.”

Although the United States government has used detention centers for decades, due to a new zero-tolerance policy enacted in 2017 and enforced as of June 2018, officials have forcibly separated children from their parents as they come to the U.S. seeking asylum. Past administrations rarely used this strategy, as it is legal to seek asylum in the U.S., according to Berry.

“Historically, [detention centers] weren’t on such a strict lockdown,” Berry said. “From what I’ve heard in the past few months from officials who have gained access, all families were separated for a certain period with the exception of certain cases.”

As thousands of children were taken from their families, Fellowship Southwest—CBF’s new regional network spanning five states in the southwestern U.S.—joined with other area partners to organize a rally and prayer vigil for the separated families. The vigil was held June 24 in Brownsville, Texas, where Cooperative Baptists and other people of faith gathered to pray, read scripture and sing hymns while standing beside the largest immigration detention center in the country housing nearly 1,500 children and teenagers.

From this rally, Fellowship Southwest leaders, led by coordinator Marv Knox alongside associate Jay Pritchard of Upward Strategy Group, launched a Facebook group called the Fellowship Southwest Alliance for Refugee Children to bring concerned citizens together to share resources, provide updates and discuss ways to work on behalf of families separated at the border. Within 24-hours the online group had attracted hundreds of members eager to discover how to put their faith to action to help end the zero-tolerance policy and help victims.

“The focus of our rally was the separation of the children from their parents, and getting them back together,” Berry said. “What’s so concerning for people here is the young children who were separated. No one wants to do that. That’s beyond our national moral standard.”

The group gathered as close to the facility as possible, stopped by armed officials and fences, which kept them from the refurbished Walmart building. They sang, spoke about the moral imperative to keep families together and support those seeking asylum.

“From slavery to Native American separation to today, with immigrants crossing our borders, America has a dark history of separating children from their parents,” said Mitch Randall, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics. “But it does my heart good to see people of decency, people of humanity, people who choose love over anything else, standing up and saying that is not who we are as a country, that is not who we are as a people of faith and demanding we act as a decent people.”

Natalie Webb, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in San Antonio, recently shared the stories of two mothers reunited with their children after they were taken at the border.

“Bessy crossed the border on June 9, fleeing abuse, violence and poverty in Honduras,” Webb wrote. “When I asked how long she had planned for her trip, she said: ‘There was no planning. There was a problem, and we had to go.”‘

When Bessy presented herself and her six-year-old son Jason for asylum, they were detained in what is known as the “ice box” for one night.

In the middle of the night, guards entered the room where Bessy was cradling Jason and demanded she wake him. When she refused to rouse the sleeping child, they continued to yell until she gently laid him on the ground and attempted to stir him. Before he was fully awake and before Bessy could react, the child was taken by guards. Officials told Bessy she would see her son the next day. She didn’t see him until July 10, more than a month later. During that month, she was held in a for-profit detainment facility in Port Isabel, where she met and became friends with another mother named Bella.

Bella, from Guatemala, was also fleeing for her life with her children, Ana and Mishel, ages 10 and 12. She did not hire a “coyote” (the name of a paid guide, who often takes advantage of desperate families’ situations) but worked her way through Mexico, stopping and finding work for a week or two. After weeks of travel, she led her children across the Rio Grande river and presented her family to U.S. officials for asylum.

“Neither mother had any idea what would be waiting for them,” Webb explained. “That their children would be taken away, that they would be treated as criminals, even though requesting asylum is in no way illegal. They told me how completely surprised they were by the harmful and violent way their families were received.”

After the perilous journey away from their abusers, a long trip across a desert that kills hundreds every year, and harsh treatment from law enforcement, the mothers were surprised by the welcome they received from people in Texas.

“They told me again and again that, after going through all of that, they’ve been even more surprised by the love and welcome and help they received here in San Antonio, and especially here at Covenant,’ Webb said.

“l received the request to shelter Bessy and Bella last Sunday night; the elders immediately approved, and you all sprang into action,” Webb wrote to her congregation. “There were no prodigals, but I couldn’t help but think of that story as I walked through this week with these mothers—grieving the absence of their children, facing hurdle after hurdle, disappointment after disappointment, then finally embracing their lost children and not wanting to ever let go,” she said.

On Friday night, when all three children were back in their mothers’ care, the congregation had an impromptu party. They roasted carne asada on a grill that hadn’t been used in years, and the mothers lent their expertise as chefs in the kitchen, not allowing anyone else to cook. Church members danced while the children, Jason and Ana, played guitar and sang.

“We feasted and laughed until we were too tired to go on,” Webb said. Mishel could barely eat, she was so tired; and Jason literally fell asleep on top of a toy in the hallway.”

Pastor Webb wrote to her congregation with questions and challenges.

“What did you see? What did you discern?” she asked them. “What action will that cause you to take?”

She asked members to continue to share their experiences.

“We have a responsibility to tell these families’ stories,” she told them. “To bear witness to the beauty and grace and strength we’ve seen in their lives.”

Webb went on to say that a month ago, she did not realize how the crisis would affect her community.

“On World Refugee Sunday, when we prayed for the families being separated, we had no idea we were praying for these families. When we wrote letters to our elected officials, we didn’t know that these were the beautiful families for whom we were outraged,” she said.

Webb explained when the congregation donated money to RAICES, a nonprofit working to reunite families across the country, she did not realize how it would influence her congregation.

“When we gave money to RAICES, we didn’t know they would use that money to pay Bessy and Bella’s bonds,” she said. “When our kids made welcome cards for refugee kids, we had no idea we’d be welcoming Jason and Ana and Mishel into our own space, our own arms.”

The action of families moving to form a better life is not a novel concept. Some historians argue it is the story of the U.S. According to genetic and archeological evidence, the Americas were the last continents to achieve human habitation.

Families leaving their countries to seek safety is also nothing new.

It corresponds with historical figures including Anne Frank, Freddie Mercury and Jesus Christ, whose parents fled with him as a baby to seek refuge in Egypt. The response throughout the ages has also been recycled. There will always be people who respond to refugees, immigrants, migrants, expatriates and asylum-seekers in a manner that welcomes them and shows hospitality.

“People say they want to make America great again; but we have assembled here because we want to make America good,” Knox said at the rally in Brownsville. “If America can become good again, greatness will take care of itself. So today, we resolve to remain aware of the situations that cause others to be afflicted. We resolve to take action.”