faith

The dirt of Laredo is caked on my boots, a dingy and grey chalk that bears the complexities of the lives of immigrants in this Texas border town, a matter of miles from Mexico.

During Encuentro this January, my classmates and I met two families at Christ Church in Laredo. They are separated from their extended families in Central America or Mexico. They, like many immigrant families on the border, face poverty, often finding only low-paying jobs. They fled the violence and injustice of their homelands, though they are not secure in the US; those who are undocumented – even if they are attempting to get paperwork approved – live in fear of the Border Patrol, deportation and state-sanctioned detention facilities.