The Priest and the Migrant: Meeting the Caravan in the Advent Season

By DAVID J. SCHMIDT

MEXICO CITY — I sat on a low concrete wall outside of the Casa del Peregrino shelter here in Mexico City. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe loomed in the distance. I checked my phone and realized it was the day after Thanksgiving.

Street lights cast dark shadows on the migrants’ faces — young men from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, hunched over paper plates. As they ate, they chatted in marked Central American accents, peppering their speech with the slang of their home countries: “Cachimba”; “vaina”; “maje.”

Reggaetón and bachata music softly bumped from the tinny speakers of a couple cell phones. A security guard stood by the open door to the shelter, ushering in a constant stream of volunteers, migrants, and journalists.

A thin young man with glasses poked his head out the doorway. “I’m Guillermo, a volunteer with the supervising priest. He will see you in a minute.” I nodded, and went back to chatting with the migrants.

Many of them wore sandals, having worn their shoes bare on the journey up here.

“We walked,” one Honduran man told me. “When we could, we took buses, hitched rides in cars, motorcycles, pickup trucks. Every kind of transportation except elephants and camels.” He laughed.

Guillermo came back outside and told me the priest was ready for me.

“What is his name?” I asked. “The priest’s.”

“Father Alejandro. Alejandro Solalinde.”

I gasped. I had come to meet the migrants and write their stories; I had no idea I would also be meeting the famous Father Solalinde.

Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest, has been defending Central American migrants for years. Mexico has long represented a daunting gauntlet for them, a journey plagued by brutal gangs, predatory immigration officers and corrupt police. The southern town of Ixtepec, Oaxaca is a frequent stop on the trek from Central America to the northern border. Since 2007, Father Solalinde has operated a shelter there, taking in the weary travelers. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and regularly receives death threats. When the Caravan crossed Mexico’s southern border, Father Solalinde was on the front lines of aid.

He emerged from the shelter and greeted me with a firm handshake. He was an affable, unassuming man, bald with glasses and wearing a white turtleneck. I asked for his perspective on this year’s Caravan.

“Things changed this year. In the past, the organization ‘Pueblo Sin Fronteras’ was able to coordinate the Caravan. They would get the migrants to the US border, declare themselves and start processing requests for asylum. It was a very orderly process, all by the books. But now, with Trump, people are being denied the right to request asylum. Children have been torn from their parents, put in cages. This is unprecedented, and it’s against international law. So, many of these young men have stayed here in Mexico City.”

Solalinde had overseen the group since they arrived, recently setting them up in this shelter by the Basilica. On the evening I met him, there were approximately 400 migrants living there. A larger group had continued northward toward Tijuana, hoping against all odds that they could request asylum in the United States. Many of them would be met with tear gas.

I thanked the priest for his time and Guillermo invited me to come inside the shelter. It was sparse but clean, filled with the scent of fresh bleach and detergent, along with the familiar smell of hundreds of tired human bodies. Guillermo introduced me to four men of varying ages, and I asked what brought them here.

“My country’s on the verge of civil war,” said a man from Nicaragua.

“Mine still hasn’t recovered from one,” said a Guatemalan.

A gray-haired man from El Salvador said simply, “gangs want to kill my family.”

“Our president is a dictator,” said the Honduran.

After an hour of conversation, I went back outside and sat on the low concrete wall. I asked the man next to me what his plans for the future were.

“I might stay here in Mexico City. Maybe head north. But I can’t give up — take a look at this.” He pulled up his pant leg to show me a jagged, ugly scar on his calf. “Got this from a Mara gang member. Came at me with a knife. They killed my brother a couple years ago. The Maras had my house staked out, waiting for me. I can never go back.”

The violence and poverty that sparked this exodus are no accident. Of the 56 US military interventions in Latin America over the last century, a disproportionate number have taken place in Central America. Most recently, in 2009, a US-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. The country was thrust into chaos so that US consumers could continue to buy cheap bananas. In the process, Honduras was transformed into the bloodiest country in the region, with one of the world’s highest murder rates. It’s an old pattern. We sow chaos, then complain when those fleeing it show up on our doorstep.

As I chatted with the folks gathered outside the shelter, I took a closer look at the crowd. Indeed, they did look bedraggled — exactly what you would expect from people who’d traveled 2,000 miles.

However, there was a cautious jubilance as well. A young married couple played with their daughter, a smiling toddler wearing a beanie with cat ears. Single men in their twenties sat on the curb smoking cigarettes, joking and laughing. Considering the circumstances, they were in remarkably good spirits. Part of this may have been the contagious, sacred love planted here by Father Solalinde. Another part was likely the sheer relief of having made it out of Central America alive.

The local volunteers continued to pour in, carrying donations, hugging Father Solalinde and his staff, chatting with the migrants. A friendly man with a goatee introduced himself as Oscar, and offered me a chip from his bag. I asked how he ended up here.

He left his native Honduras after the coup, he said, when it became “uninhabitable.” He had no idea if he could ever go back. I asked Oscar if he wanted to send a message to the people of Mexico.

“Gracias.” His eyes teared up. “I want to thank this nation from the bottom of my heart. Mexico has given me everything. Even now, Father Solalinde’s people are helping me process my immigration visa. Gracias, México.”

Guillermo joined us and asked what brought me to the shelter.

“I wanted to meet these men and women. But also, I wanted to help. So do many of my friends here in Mexico City.”

“We could always use toiletries, soap, toothpaste,” Guillermo said. “And jobs. Some of these men still hope to get to the northern border; many others are staying here. But they all want to work. They don’t like being idle.”

I offered to put him in touch with friends who owned businesses. “What about people who live far away?” I asked. “How can they help?”

“They can stand up for the migrants in their own cities.” Guillermo stared at the distant profile of the Basilica. “Recognize Christ in the migrant. This Christmas season, wherever you live, remember that the migrant’s face is Christ’s face.”

David J. Schmidt is an author and multilingual translator who splits his time between Mexico City and San Diego, Calif. He is a proponent of immigrants’ rights and fair trade, and works with worker-owned coops in Mexico to help them develop alternative, fair sources of income. See holyghoststories.com.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2019

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