Thank you for joining us on this trip! 
¡Gracias por unirse a nosotrxs en este viaje!

We are a group of seven current and former graduate students from the International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE) department at Clark University.

Starting on June 28, our team will travel to McAllen and Brownsville, TX for 3 weeks to work with Catholic Charities of the Rio Grand Valley, Angry Tías y Abuelas, and Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden, humanitarian organizations who provide legal and material assistance to asylum seekers at the US southern border. In order to better understand the humanitarian response to asylum-seeking and recent immigrant populations at the border, we will spend most of our time as volunteers at the respite center which “provides a place for the countless men, women, children and infant refugees to rest, have a warm meal, a shower and change into clean clothing…receive medicine and other supplies, before continuing onto their journey”. 

Additionally, our team will also be working to fortify the efforts of the Overground Railroad, a project by Grannies Respond to create a national network of bus station volunteers who greet and assist asylum seekers as they travel from detention centers to their sponsors across the US.

You may have recently heard the name Scott Warren, a border activist who is facing 20 years in prison for providing humanitarian aid to two migrants. Warren recently told a jury that he was motivated by three intentions: 
1) relief of suffering
2) respect for human dignity
3) the right to self-determination

In the spirit of Scott Warren and of IDCE, which is committed to increasing our understanding of issues at the intersection of development, community, and environment and our capacity to respond, we hope our time at the border will help contribute toward building a society which fosters those three values.

Thank you for joining us in helping ‘lay the tracks’ for asylum seekers to make a new home in the US.