Faithful Resistance in the Face of Injustice

The Heartbreak of Family Separation

I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the night the news broke in June 2018 about the thousands of children separated from their parents while seeking asylum at the U.S. border. Parents were coerced into signing papers they didn’t understand, then dragged onto planes and deported without their children. I felt sick and distraught in the face of such injustice. The online debates that followed left me questioning the soul of our nation. How could we ever justify ripping vulnerable children from their parents' arms? Living in San Diego, just miles from the border, made the heartbreak feel even closer.

Finding Ways to Help

Six months later, I heard about an organization searching for families willing to host asylum seekers. Among the hundreds of deported parents, 90 were nearly impossible to find—speakers of indigenous languages living in remote villages. Volunteers trekked through the mountains of Honduras and Guatemala, asking, Where are the parents whose babies were taken? We are here to help. They found every single one. Many were reunited with their children, but for 29 parents, reuniting meant an impossible choice: to never see their child again or have them returned to imminent danger.

Meeting Melanie and Elizabeth

When I learned about this, I couldn’t look away. I jumped on an opportunity to temporarily house one of these parents and followed a confusing trail of emails, phone calls, and paperwork that led me to a Skype call with a mom and her 8-year-old daughter—I’ll call them Melanie and Elizabeth. They were waiting in Tijuana, hoping to cross back into the U.S., reunite with Melanie’s 10-year-old son, and apply for asylum.