By Hanlin Wang
May 8th, 2021
EUGENE, Ore. — Asian migrants aren’t just plagued by the ongoing pandemic. As they flee their homes due to safety concerns and financial hardship, they are encountering language barriers, cultural impediments and lack of service around the U.S.-Mexico border.
“There can definitely be a more humanitarian approach at the border,” said Michelle Celleri, a Human Rights Counsel at Alliance San Diego.
Celleri has been involved with the migrant community to promote diversity and collaborate with organizations.
Used by the Trump administration and continued by President Biden, provision of U.S. health law, section 265 of Title 42 has kept the asylum seekers out of the gate of the United States and left them at the gang-active Mexico border. It allows people to be denied entry into the United States if these people potentially pose a health risk.
It’s the international and non-government organizations that are working in Mexico with people to put together a pack for humanitarian exemption.
“But there is not a real formal process, and individuals at the border trying to seek entry don’t know the process.” Celleri said, “the Asian population, if they don’t speak English, or if they don’t speak Spanish, the chance of them getting access to an organization that is able to help them, it’s going to be very difficult.”
Language difficulty – “They don’t feel they have a community there.”
Reassuringly, there have been organizations that cross the language barrier to help the non-English or non-Spanish migrants getting the help they need.
“I was able to get a phone number of those individuals, and I’m looking for a translator or interpreter here in the U.S. side, and I’ll be calling them as soon as I get an interpreter.” Ian M. Seruelo said, a Labor Representative at the Asia Pacific American Labor Alliance at San Diego, who has been helping migrant families at the border to enter the U.S.
Migrants encounter many security problems on the Mexican side of the border.
“We already did for an intake of more than 100 families there,” Seruelo said, “and what’s common is that we see a lot of them have some form of interaction with the gang, either they were threatened, robbed, or raped.”
Seruelo talked with people from Haiti.
“They said it’s good that somehow there are a big number of them there, they were able to help each other,” he said. “But not those that are from Asia.”
When Seruelo talked to one Middle Eastern there, the person told him that because they don’t speak Spanish, they feel more vulnerable and don’t feel like they have a community there.
Along the U.S.-Mexico border, there is a lack of visibility for the Asian immigrant community. Juanita Molina, the Executive Director for Border Action Network, said, “There is a lack of discussion and acknowledgment of people coming and crossing this way.”
Death prevention – “That’s a humanitarian issue.”
Asian migrants from China, Korea, Vietnam, and India face the challenge of distance, it usually needs months or years of cover on their way to the U.S. border, making them incredibly vulnerable.
Molina said, “We see a lot of sick people come through, and we have experienced a very tragic loss.”
A six-year-old girl died after attempting to cross the U.S-Mexico border with her mother. Leaving from India, it took them about a year and a half to get to the border.
“She made it one mile into the United States,” said Molina. The little girl passed away due to sun exposure.
Molina said, “unfortunately, I don’t see much of a response from the federal government to prevent these deaths.”
The federal government has been putting a policy into force that pushes migrants to more and more dangerous areas.
In the last 15 years of death mapping and evaluation, Molina noticed people are dying closer to the international line at the Mexican border.
The extreme heat and cold of the desert cause life-threatening harm to the Asian migrants, who are malnourished, along with a lack of medical attention, and basic needs like water. Which has even been less accessible to them during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The primary responsibility in dealing with migrant death has been a voluntary response. Molina said, “so literally volunteers are going to the desert, packed with water, or creating water stations, to try to prevent death due to dehydration.
As the pandemic went on and intensified, these volunteers were quarantined, “there was even less service in that area,” said Molina.
“That’s a humanitarian issue,” Celleri said.
“So it’s not right or wrong, it’s a human thing, it’s fulfilling necessities of life,” she said, “you know, I don’t think anybody wants somebody to die from thirst, so the work is much needed. “What’s sad is people don’t always see it that way,” said Celleri.
The Border Angel, which is a non-profit organization that lets volunteers bring water to the isolated desert area where the migrants are likely to cross, told Celleri that they went out there and found their water container with holes in them, that was slid open by somebody else and they left the trash there, rather than letting the migrants receive the water.
Battling bias – Immigration as a privilege?
Molina said the perception for many Asian migrants is that there is some kind of ill intent in migrating to the United States to begin with.
Kate Shattuck, a 33 years old removal defense attorney at the Catholic Charity in Portland, Oregon, thinks that recently in the last four years, in particular, asylum seeking has been thought of or talked about as a privilege in the U.S. national conversation on immigration.
“Our experience has been, I think, a real counterpoint to that viewpoint,” Shattuck said, sigh after a sigh.
Shattuck has a case involving a family from the Middle East, who lived in a country with the majority of Muslims and have converted to a different faith.
“They have received threats from family members, and the police there have refused to protect them.” She said, “and they believe that they will be harmed.”
“It’s not a privilege to not be tortured,” said Professor Lynn Marcus at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, ”it’s a right.”
Shattuck said, “ I wish that people would realize that asylum seekers are not trying to take advantage of a privilege, cutting the line, or manipulating the immigration system.”