By Marcy Stamper
As immigration is once again a major focus of public policy and debate, one Liberty Bell High School graduate is working directly with Central American asylum seekers to provide basic comforts and transportation.
“At the very basic level, I’m helping people get on buses and making sure they have food, but it turns out to be more complicated,” said Galen Hunt, who graduated from Liberty Bell High School in 2010.
Hunt is an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer based in Tucson, helping run a program that serves migrants — the majority from the western mountains of Guatemala and Honduras — who fear they will be harmed or killed if they are returned to their home country. It is specifically designed for people traveling with children under 18 and for pregnant women, said Hunt. He started the one-year assignment as volunteer coordinator in August.
The people Hunt helps have crossed the Mexican border and either turned themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents or been picked up while trying to cross the desert. By the time Hunt sees them, they have all passed what is called a credible-fear exam, convincing the authorities that if they are deported they will be in grave danger.
The Border Patrol issues these individuals temporary documents for humanitarian release, which allow them to join a relative already in the United States and require that they report to an immigration office to start the process for their asylum claim.
The program Hunt is coordinating was started this summer, when a flood of migrants surged across the border. Community volunteers stepped in to help but, as the number of migrants climbed from two families a day to 35, the situation became increasingly unmanageable, he said.
Volunteers at the bus station gave out food and clothing but, with 100 migrants and 50 volunteers crowding the station, Greyhound couldn’t function, said Hunt.
Volunteers get help
Eventually, Catholic Community Services stepped in, began organizing the volunteers, and made a house available for people who could not get on a bus immediately.
Hunt lives at the house and coordinates the volunteers, who help with cooking and transportation for the migrants. He also often has to contact the migrants’ relatives to make sure they have purchased the bus ticket, guiding them through an unfamiliar process.
These days the number of people arriving has slowed, with an average of two families a day, said Hunt.
Some people can board a bus the same day, while others may spend a night or two at the house. They get meals, a shower, clothing and whatever else they need to make it safely to their destination.
Occasionally people arrive with medical or other emergencies that require Hunt to work with consulates and other government officials. One woman, who went into labor when she got to the Border Patrol station, stayed at the house for a week with her newborn.
“My favorite part is hanging out with the immigrants, hearing their stories, and playing with babies,” said Hunt.
Hunt, who graduated from Brown University in May with a major in international relations and spent a semester in Spain, said his Spanish has improved since he started the job, although many of the migrants speak Mayan languages and very little Spanish, making the job even more complex.
Most of the people he works with say they left their homes because of the high crime rate, and many report death threats, said Hunt. Others have come to look for jobs.
The vast majority of the people he helps are women — only one in every 20 or 30 is a man. It is also more difficult for Mexicans to qualify for humanitarian release, he said.
Difficult trips
The majority of the migrants are headed for half a dozen towns, where they work at jobs that may seem unappealing to people with more options, said Hunt. Among the most common destinations are Liberal, Kansas, where there is an industrial pig farm, and Lumberton, North Carolina, where people work in a poultry plant. Other common destinations are West Palm Beach and other parts of Florida, and Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, where most migrants will clean houses or mow lawns, said Hunt.
Getting to these places from Tucson takes days and requires numerous bus transfers, which can be confusing to someone with limited English and no familiarity with the United States or the bus system. Hunt supplies everyone with a bus schedule translated into Spanish, plus a sign asking people to point them to their bus. Many of the people are illiterate, making the printed bus schedule an additional challenge.
Unaccompanied minors are handled by a separate program, released to the government and sent to detention centers.
Hunt said he initially thought he would have very little in common with people from a remote mountain village in Central America but, as his Spanish improved, he discovered considerable common ground. “They live in the mountains in Guatemala, but they all have Facebook,” which they access at Internet cafés, said Hunt.
“It gets stressful, but I feel like I’ve seen every situation resolved by now,” said Hunt. “Pretty much everyone gets on their buses eventually.”
