Week on the Border

I was in El Paso, Texas, on Monday, Jan. 20, while Donald Trump was being inaugurated. On Monday, Jan. 20uary 20, 2025, while Donald Trump was being inaugurated, I was in El Paso, Texas. I was on an educational trip to the US-Mexico border to learn about immigration. This precedent-breaking week was a whirlwind of policies impacting the lives of real people on the border who are trying to enter the United States legally. Immigration was one of the most important factors of the 2024 Presidential election. To see how that played out, in person, on the border, was challenging and perspective-changing.

We went to a migrant shelter in Juarez, Mexico. I met a 9-year-old girl from Mexico named Stefani there. I also met a man named Solomon from Ghana and others from war-torn Cameroon. Solomon had faced political persecution in Ghana. He flew into a South American country and traveled up through the Darien Gap, a violent and lawless 60-mile strip of rainforest between Colombia and Panama. He continued through Central America to the US-Mexico border. During this trip, he was kidnapped twice and had recent scars on his hands as a result.

When we entered the migrant shelter, it became clear that the environment inside was hopeless. Trump had recently revoked the CBP-1 app, an app that allowed asylum-seeking immigrants to schedule appointments on the border to apply for asylum. The dispelling of this app effectively left everyone in the migrant shelter without a legal way forward. 

These people have encountered more hardships than I can imagine, and their resilience and courage are astounding. These are the types of people I’d be proud to call American. The United States has always been a country of immigrants. Now is no different. We need a legal path forward for asylum-seekers and immigrants to enter the United States and pursue the American Dream.