Thrive International staff share their experience at the southern border

The air was heavy with emotions ranging from sadness to hope at the Central Library on Thursday, as members of the Thrive International team described their experiences visiting the El Paso-Juarez border and shared the human element often missing from the immigration discussion among politicians and media.

The discussion panel consisted of Thrive staff members Sonia Rodriguez, Anna Bondarenko, Jim CastroLang, Saw Gary, and Evelyn Mairena Ramirez from a group called Mexico RED that works near the Tijuana border crossing. Thrive Executive Director Mark Finney and Development Director Melinda Manning made opening and closing remarks.

Thrive International is a Spokane nonprofit known for addressing housing issues for refugees and those with temporary protective status. Finney told the audience that their main goal is to help migrants move from "surviving to thriving."

"We acknowledge that immigrants are people who already know how to survive," Finney said. "You can't get to Spokane unless you are pretty savvy at figuring out how to navigate the world."

The Thrive leadership team decided to visit the southern border in June to learn more about the current challenges for migrants. Thrive teamed up with Abara, an El Paso nonprofit, for an informative three-day educational border encounter experience.

"We did meet with nonprofit organizations that worked in shelters," Manning said. "We saw the shelters and toured both sides of the border."

After seeing the border wall and discarded items left behind by those who make the journey, Bondarenko said she was reminded of a migrant family who settled in Seattle this past year.

Bondarenko shared the family's harrowing journey: After arriving at the southern border in Mexico, they waited four days with no water and in intense heat before being allowed to enter the United States, where they were quickly sent on a flight to Seattle, a place they had never been before.

The family had no idea what their next step would be, Bondarenko said. A SEA-TAC airport employee gave them some information and they are now being helped by Thrive's new program in King County, which began in December 2023.

"Someone at the Seattle airport said, 'Go here,' [Thrive International] and they're here now,"  Bondarenko says. "They're with us and part of our program."

Bondarenko described helping the family and the footage they shared from their experience coming to the U.S.

"They shared with me a video where they're walking along the side [of the wall]," Bondarenko said, holding back tears, "and the woman is praying and asking God to help and protect them."

Stepping in to add context after Bondarenko was emotionally overcome and unable to finish describing the experience, CastroLang added that even with statistics and information, actually witnessing what's happening is overwhelming for anyone, regardless of political belief.

Gary, Bondarenko, and CastroLang described how they felt seeing and touching the border wall. Gary said that, as a refugee from Burma, he understands the difficulty that comes with obtaining refugee status, but seeing the wall, he felt the elevated difficulty for those seeking asylum or trying to otherwise cross at the border.

"Being there, touching the humanity of it, and realizing that this is about people just like you and me," CastroLang said.


In particular, seeing that more families are migrating to the U.S. stood out to members of the panel.

According to the Department of Homeland Security's "Metrics Report: 2022," a noncitizen family unit may include accompanied minor children and their parents; a mother and child encountered at the border would be reported as two individuals in a family unit. In 2023, there were 365,008 "individuals in a family unit" encounters and 94,803 encounters with unaccompanied children, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Ramirez discussed her organization, Mexico RED, which focuses on helping families and children by offering outreach, food and educational opportunities in the Zona Norte district in Tijuana, Mexico.

She described a family of five from Honduras who fled with the goal of going to the U.S. after receiving death threats in their home country. The family lived in a tent in a makeshift refugee camp in Mexico near the San Ysidro port of entry. The wife was pregnant, and the camp lacked clean water, and due to removal by Mexican officials the family was forced to relocate, ultimately finding a room in the red light district of Tijuana because it's affordable.

The wife gave birth in Mexico and experienced many challenges, such as finding adequate education for her children and the potential for being sex trafficked due to their location. Ramirez said it took more than three years waiting in Mexico for that Honduran family to be approved for asylum and enter the U.S., and they ultimately settled in California.

"They are happy to finally arrive where they have a safe place to live," Ramirez said. "Oscar [the husband] is working and supporting his family."

The Department of Homeland Security's "Metrics Report: 2022" states that U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 2,383 migrants identified as individuals in a family unit who were from North Central America - including El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala - at the San Diego port of entry in 2021.

That same year there were a total of 263,321 family unit apprehensions at all southern border ports of entry, a decline from 2019, when more than 430,546 family units were apprehended.

So far in fiscal year 2024 (which started in October 2023), citizens from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have accounted for 313,973 encounters on the southern land border.

After the tear-jerking conversation, Finney gave his closing remarks. He said to his knowledge, many refugees from Spanish-speaking countries would love to migrate to a country with the same language majority, but threats from law enforcement, struggles to get employment, and exploitation in those places are reasons to seek the U.S.

Finney said there's been a demographic shift in immigration into the U.S.

Organizations used to encounter individual men who came here to work and provide money to their families back home. Currently they're seeing whole families fleeing here.

"Now it's a whole lot of families with little kids," Finney said. "In fact, the majority of people are families with children, and that's who we serve [at Thrive]."

U.S. Border Patrol encountered 131,519 unaccompanied children in 2023 from the southwest land border. So far in the current fiscal year there have been 81,850 unaccompanied children encounters, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Finney said the bipartisan border security bill that recently failed in Congress would have addressed many of the current issues.

"Policy does matter, and we do need secure borders. We don't want gangs crossing," Finney said. "We also want to make sure that this is viable."