"The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these." - Mark 12:31 A mural at Good Neighbor Settlement House To each of you followed along with us on this journey, we want to thank you. The seven of us left for McAllen, Texas at the end of June and …
Author: Elena
The Myth of Overcrowding
Today a curious thing happened: When our team arrived at the respite center, instead of the usual 500-1,000 asylum seekers, there were only 20. It's no coincidence that Vice President Pence came to visit one of the McAllen detention centers on Friday. Normally, when detainees are released they are bused by CBP to the respite …
Brownsville to Matamoros
On Wednesday, our team departed McAllen for Brownsville, where we'd be spending the next few days working with another organization called Team Brownsville, which coordinates volunteers to serve dinner at a camp directly at the Mexican border in Matamoros. When we arrived at Good Neighbor Settlement House in Brownsville that afternoon, we prepared two large …
Los Traquerxs in the News
We want to thank Chris Goudreau for speaking to our team and writing this excellent piece for the Valley Advocate about the efforts of Massachusetts residents to take action on behalf of immigrants and asylum seekers. Halley Glier, a 22-year-old graduate student at Clark University from Shelburne Falls, is at the border now. She is …
Independence Day
At 8 am this morning, citizens of McAllen were already lining the streets in anticipation for the city's 4th of July parade. Inside the respite center just a block away, staff and volunteers were scrambling to make calls to maintain their flow of supplies and donations as drivers were cut off by the closed streets. …
Okay, So You Saw a Photo. Now What?
I'm grateful for the people who remind us not to exploit the most vulnerable in the pursuit of our political aims. I'm also grateful for the people who remind us that an appalling but humanizing image can rekindle our outrage over normalized atrocities. The needless deaths of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria …
La Posada: Becoming Refuge
A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Montreal, formerly known in the 1600s as Ville-Marie, or the City of Mary. The early Canadian settlement paid tribute to the biblical Mary for granting the colonists safe passage on the journey to North America. They built churches in her honor and spread the 'Good News' …
Hello!
Thanks for being here! Please head over to the About page to read more about us, or follow us using the signup form on the right to be notified of new posts. We've also set up a GoFundMe through which your generous support will help us maximize our capacity along this trip. Stay tuned for …
Los Traquerxs 