Across Borders

536 gang-affiliates;

847 assaulted officers & border patrol agents;

3,221 rescued illegal immigrants;

48,681 unaccompanied children;

305,414 rounds of ammunition;

2.14 million pounds of narcotics.

These are some of the staggering numbers reported by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in their border security report for the fiscal year of 2017 (“CBP Border Security Report”). While San Diego’s border patrol is the smallest sector geographically, it is found to be the busiest in the realm of illegality. San Diego Sector runs from California’s border with Mexico, which contains 7,000 square miles, and runs up to Oregon, with a total of 56,831 square miles-- 931 miles of such being directly on the coast (“San Diego Sector California”). As the security of land borders have increased, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has noted a shift in illegal activities, such as smuggling humans and drugs, which have begun to more commonly involve “aerial, subterranean, and maritime domains”. One should know that human smuggling and human trafficking are not the same. Human smuggling specifically involves the transporting of illegal aliens into the United States, while human trafficking focuses on the exploitation of those who are forced into “involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery” through methods of force, fraud or coercion (“Human Trafficking and Smuggling”).

In February of 2018, I went on a two-day border pilgrimage with a small group of Point Loma Nazarene University students, a campus pastor and his wife, and the director of PLNU’s Center for Justice and Reconciliation. Early on Saturday morning we sat around a large wooden table in the director, Dr. Jamie Gates’, home to hear from his neighbors-- two young, Mexican twin girls, whose story you can read about here. It was clear that these sisters had become passionate about sharing with others how immigration had affected, and more specifically separated, their family. Though I believe there to be both biblical and necessary mandates for having protected borders, and that it is wrong to enter into any country without legal documentation, the divided families and fatherless children that come from such are surely not God’s design. It is for the new reality of these girls’ lives that my heart has compassion and I am reminded that decisions always have consequences that never affect just one person.

Next, we went to the U.S. Border Patrol station to hear from Rodney S. Scott, the chief patrol agent for San Diego Sector as of December, 2017. He introduced himself to us by explaining that he was “first, a Christian; second, a husband; third, a father; and fourth, the U.S. chief patrol agent of San Diego Sector.” He told us of his strong conviction to protect the borders of our country as anyone rightly protects his own home with doors and windows that have locks. He then pointed back to the Garden of Eden, where God gave Adam and Eve borders and boundaries, righteous rules and perfect protection. And this was when the world was completely sinless. To think that we are better off without borders or laws as to who can come in and out of our country is truly foolish, he argued, as anyone can see that our world is fallen. Mr. Scott also shared with us that over half of those with a position in the U.S. Border Control San Diego sector are Hispanic, hence it is illegitimate to claim that the U.S.’s law enforcement is racist. “Racist? I don’t think they’d appreciate you calling them racist against their own people”, he suggested. Read here about his meeting with President Trump and how building a wall has affected illegal immigration and the smuggling of drugs in particular.

Afterward, we went to Friendship Park. It is there that I learned that “more goods and people cross the US-Mexico border each day than any other border in the world”. (“A Place of Friendship”) Friendship Park is a place for family members and friends to have face-to-face contact with one another through the wall that divides Tijuana and San Diego. I saw one man sitting in a folding chair on the United States side talking to who I assumed to be his wife on the other side, whom was surrounded by playing children. Her eyes hid behind sunglasses and her lips were pressed tightly together as she fanned herself and held an umbrella over her head. They weren’t even talking. I wondered what it was like for her if she was, in fact, his wife and was raising their children while he was in a country so close, yet unattainable for her to enter into. After standing on San Diego’s side, which was hardly occupied and well-manicured, we went onto Tijuana’s side. There, people were cooking on beach grills, celebrating birthdays, and playing soccer. The music was loud, the sand was covered with towels and chairs, and people were laughing. “What a contrast”, I thought as I looked behind me to see through the slits of the wall an almost empty park and beyond that, San Diego’s skyline.

We then walked into downtown Tijuana, eventually hitting the streets that I had anticipated: Zona Del Norte. It is a neighborhood in Tijuana that holds one of the largest red light districts in North America. Women, young and old, were standing outside of the bars and brothels. Some looked distracted by their cell phones, others looked down at the ground. With the few that I made eye contact with, pain and shame was so clearly in their eyes. Many believe that prostitution is a “career” that women willingly choose, but the reality is that there are two common factors that bring a girl or woman into prostitution: poverty (lack of educational opportunity, financial stability, and work qualification) and a “history of childhood abuse and/or sexual abuse”, according to Exodus Cry-- a highly commendable and knowledgeable anti-trafficking organization (“Ten Big Myths About Prostitution”).

I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Dr. Jamie Gates, who is a top researcher in San Diego county on sex trafficking. He did a “three-year study examining the relationship between gangs, the community, and sex trafficking in San Diego County” which you can read about here. Such furthers my strong belief that prostitution oftentimes victimizes those involved, and should be considered a crime. I will conclude my experience in Zona Del Norte by saying that I see much commonality of the masquerade that Thai and Mexican women must put on as they stand around the outside of any given bar or brothel. They are spiritually, emotionally, and less obviously physically broken. How customers see past this, I do not know. It feels dark in places such as these.

We concluded our first day of the border pilgrimage in a center for deportees. I listened to one man as he told our group his testimony, and then later had a long conversation with him one-on-one over a dinner of rice in a low-lit room filled with rows of men sitting on benches. They all had very different stories of how they got to this Catholic deportation center, where they were now seeking work and most likely reconnecting with family in-country. This man told me about his addiction to drugs and dishonest living and eventual eighteen-year incarceration to a Los Angeles jail cell. Weeks after he was let out, he was sent back to Mexico where he had only spent a few months of his life as a newborn. He told me, though, that being sent to jail was exactly what it took for God to get his attention.

It was there that he earned four distinct degrees from the jail and became a Bible study leader for many of the men who had also began seeking the Lord. After denying many offers to continue in his drug addiction, he proudly told me that he was clean. And he went on to say that being sent to Mexico was the best thing for him-- God knew it and now he did, too. It was there that he grew in his leadership skills and found a stable line of work. Even still, he continues to go back to mentor the scared, young men whose shoes he once walked in, and encourages them to work with their hands and lead quiet lives (1 Thessalonians 4:11). Why was I so surprised that his life could be better in Mexico than it was in the United States? I was convicted that night that we, as people, don’t perfectly know what we need, nor is the United States always the answer to bettering one’s life.

I learned much through this experience and thank God for opportuning me with such. I definitely left with an overwhelming realization that human trafficking is complex, being unlimited in the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s, and why’s, just as immigration is. The criminal activity that happens over borders and in illegal immigration is only one facet of the issue of human trafficking, but it is one.

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Sources

https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2017-Dec/cbp-border-security-report-fy2017.pdf

https://www.ice.gov/factsheets/human-trafficking

http://www.friendshippark.org/about

https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-patrol-sectors/san-diego-sector-california

https://exoduscry.com/blog/general/ten-big-myths-prostitution/