NFJON Executive Director Rob Rutland-Brown and the experience of asylum seekers waiting in Tijuana, Mexico
Imagine you’re preparing for a job interview. Now imagine the stakes aren’t whether you get that job or not, but whether you’ll be beaten or killed if you get sent back to the place you fled. And when you arrive at the office for the interview, rather than being made to wait 20 minutes, you’re told you’ll have to wait a minimum of six to eight weeks.
Oh, and there’s no office where you can wait comfortably, so you’ll need to find a shelter or maybe a highway overpass. Also, your kids are with you, and they don’t even have a smart phone to help take their minds off the fact that they’re cold/hot/hungry/thirsty/cranky. Actually, your kids, like you, have absolutely nothing.
You know nothing about the interviewers or the questions they’ll ask you. This is indescribably stressful because this interview, needless to say, is extremely important.
It’s not a stretch to say your life depends on it.
If you’re like me, you’d want some help preparing for the interview from experts who know what you’ll be asked and can teach you how to tell your story in a way that is both clear and compelling.
You’ll want someone to explain to you that answering the question, “Why did you flee to the U.S.?” with “Honduras can be dangerous,” says nothing about your situation. You’ll need someone who, after hearing the atrocities you’ve experienced, reminds you to emphasize to the interviewer that the gang actually shot your cousin and said you were next unless you handed over your daughter to them.
It is this “Credible Fear Interview” preparation that is the heart of the daily clinics at Al Otro Lado, the nonprofit group in Tijuana where attorneys and staff from the Justice for Our Neighbors network have volunteered multiple times this year. I had the opportunity to join them in early May.
These interviews, conducted by asylum officers, are the first barrier in the long, complicated, and ever-changing gauntlet of the U.S. asylum process. In order to even receive a court date (months or years down the road) and avert immediate deportation, one must pass this interview.
While attorneys and trained volunteers work with immigrants to flesh out their stories, my role for the day is childcare. Childcare, aka “playtime,” at these clinics serves two main functions.
First, it allows for the parent/s to meet with the volunteer in peace, without the distraction of a toddler crawling in their lap or a seven-year-old overhearing the horrors of a murder they witnessed.
Second, it provides a couple hours of reprieve for the child, who will soon return to lying on a mat in a shelter for a few more weeks. He can escape in a game of dominoes or an animal coloring book rather than sit alone and wonder what he’ll get to eat tomorrow or, worse, watch his mother sob at a table on the other side of the room while recounting her rape.
At the Tijuana border crossing alone, tens of thousands of CFI interviews are happening this year. Tens of thousands of stories of terror, each told by a frightened father, a solemn mother, a lonely and traumatized child. Amidst such unspeakable sadness, it is at least something to know we are preparing these courageous souls to tell their stories with the authenticity and brutal honesty they deserve.
