Sunday, August 2, 2020 - Solidarity Across Borders Campaign

With migrant communities facing increased marginalization and vulnerability, the need for solidarity has taken on a newfound sense of urgency. The Kino Border Initiative seeks to highlight the solidarity among and with migrants in the time of COVID and inspire us to be more committed advocates.

As COVID-19 cases have surged within detention centers, detainees have been left feeling exponentially more vulnerable. This has created a new level of solidarity among them, including organizing collective hunger strikes to protest their “imprisonment.” Detainees have also self-organized, writing letters to affiliated advocacy groups or individuals to elevate their concerns. In some cases, journalists, groups, family members of detainees, and previous detainees have released video chats and phone calls with detainees to news media outlets to draw attention to the poor conditions and sanitation. This solidarity, first within detention centers and then linked to those outside of detention centers have helped shed light on the issue.

The global pandemic and recent shifts in the asylum-seeking process have hampered schooling for migrant students. However, a variation of classrooms for children in migration has emerged at various Mexican border cities, including the Sidewalk School in Matamoros, Mexico. The school was initially staffed by volunteers from outside the encampment, and after several months, the leadership of the school transitioned to the hands of other asylum-seekers.

In a migrant camp in Matamoros, a group of migrants with medical backgrounds offer their expertise to other asylum seekers. This group of medical professionals manage a small clinic while keeping the virus at bay. As asylum-seekers wait for increasingly long periods of time at the border, there has been an increase in methods of organizing and governance among migrants. A community within the Matamoros camp established a representative democracy in January. Representatives from each country of origin were elected to coordinate efforts in areas of communication, resource distribution, sanitation, and general civil response.

Accompaniment, “walking with” or “being with” vulnerable people and communities, is a way of working and living that is guided by mutuality and listening to the needs of the communities one is working alongside or standing alongside in solidarity. As advocates for more just migration, one of the most powerful things that we can do to stand in solidarity with migrant communities is to bring them back into sight – make them seen and make them heard. We can listen to their stories and take the time to understand their realities, their needs, and their struggles so that we can be better educated, equipped, and strategic in how we support them.

The urgency of persistent action and solidarity has increased as the pandemic rages on and immigrants and asylum seekers continue to be further targeted and marginalized. The Kino Border Initiative, the source of this article, is facilitating the online campaign “Solidarity Across Borders.” This campaign seeks to lift up the testimonies of migrant communities and the additional difficulties they encounter in the face of a pandemic. Throughout the campaign, testimonies will be coupled with calls to action and modes of expressing solidarity with migrant communities that bring about tangible change.