A New Migrant Resource Center in Sonoyta Reflects the Reality That Asylum Seekers Could Remain in Mexican Border Cities for the Long Term
The Border Chronicle is focusing this week on two Mexican border cities in the state of Sonora—Sonoyta and Nogales—and taking a closer look at how border residents are responding to the need of asylum seeking families who may be staying for months, even years as they wait for the U.S. to restore its asylum processing. Today, I write about the small town of Sonoyta which now hosts a migrant resource center and three shelters. On Thursday, Todd will have a piece on Nogales where asylum seekers are sprawled out across the city living in crowded apartments, shelters and makeshift encampments as they wait for the Biden administration to resume processing of asylum requests under the Migrant Protection Protocols program, often called “Remain in Mexico” where families wait for their U.S. court hearings in Mexico.
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A New Migrant Resource Center in Sonoyta Reflects the Reality That Asylum Seekers Could Remain in Mexican Border Cities for the Long Term
Sonoyta is a small town—around 13,000 residents—and a way station for migrants preparing for the deadly trek north into the United States through the vast Sonoran Desert and Tohono O’odham Nation.
Historically, many who came to Sonoyta, on the Mexico-Arizona border, were single men who wanted to migrate for economic reasons. But around 2015, residents began to see an increase in asylum-seeking families—most of them with small children, looking for shelter and food.
After Trump implemented Title 42 in 2020, an obscure public health statute that allows Border Patrol to quickly expel asylum seekers without a hearing during the pandemic, an even greater number of Central American families barred from requesting asylum in Texas—a traditional crossing point since it is closer to Central America—found themselves in the small border town in Sonora, hoping for a second chance.
A series of shelters sprung up to serve the families, including the Casa de Migrante, run by Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which largely serves men, and the Casa San Pedro, operated by the Catholic Church, which serves families. Another private shelter also recently opened that hosts both families and single men.
Since families are staying longer in Sonoyta, due to the asylum process being shut down first by Trump and now by the Biden administration, residents from both sides of the border joined together to build a new migrant resource center, Centro de Esperanza, to provide meals, legal assistance, clothing, and shoes to families who want to request asylum in the United States. The center, built by the nonprofit Shelters for Hope, celebrated its grand opening on December 18. The city’s mayor, and other local elected officials, participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and a Catholic priest blessed the opening of the new center.
Now operating for about a month, the center serves anywhere from 20 to 100 people a day with support from the local community, whose members regularly donate food and juice boxes for the kids, according to Arlene Rivera, who helped raise money for the center. The center consists of an intake office and two rooms that store donated clothes, shoes, and toys. It also has a medical room, bathrooms with showers, an educational room for the children, and a large kitchen. “It’s been so rewarding to see the kids come into the little classroom we have and playing in the sandbox,” said Rivera. “And to be able to feed these families. If we weren’t feeding them, I don’t know where they would be eating, or if they would be eating.”
After Trump was elected, Rivera said, she felt an urgency to help migrants arriving at the border but wasn’t sure how. “I didn’t want to get involved in politics,” she said. “It’s too complicated.” Rivera, who lives in Los Angeles, saw a posting on Facebook seeking donations of blankets for migrants in Tijuana. Rivera drove to San Diego with 60 blankets, but an organizer there told her there was even greater need on the Arizona-Mexico border.
So, Rivera drove another 360 miles to Sonoyta, a place she’d never been, and it changed her life. At the Casa Migrante, a shelter in the center of town, Rivera met a mother from Honduras who had fled with her teenage son, whom a gang had tried to forcibly recruit. “She protected him, and as punishment they came after her,” said Rivera. “She had this huge scar on her belly from the gunshot wounds. She finished by telling me she had another 13-year-old son still in Honduras, and she didn’t know what was going to happen to him.”
After Rivera returned home, she was depressed for weeks. “I have a son, and her story really hit home for me,” Rivera said. She decided she’d return to Sonoyta and see what she could do to help in a more impactful way.
Eventually Rivera met John Orlowski, who lives in Ajo, Arizona, about 40 miles north of Sonoyta.
“We’d seen the shelters open and close at will,” Orlowski said. “And we realized that there was a great need to centralize resources so they could be more equitably distributed.”
Rivera and Orlowski formed a nonprofit called Shelters for Hope, then joined forces with Karla Betancourt and Aaron Flores, who live in Sonoyta, to build the migrant resource center.
Rivera, who is a revenue manager at Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart and Sullivan, a global law firm in LA, raised much of the money from attorneys at the firm. The center also received donations from other individuals and volunteer organizations, including the Ajo Samaritans, Humane Borders, No More Deaths, and the University Presbyterian Church in Tempe.
With the donated money, the nonprofit bought an abandoned hotel, which was in rough condition, said Orlowski. “We had to rebuild the roof, redo the electrical,” he said.
Karla Betancourt, codirector of the center along with Flores, said the Centro de Esperanza is there to meet the growing need at the border. “They can come for breakfast and lunch, take a shower, and find a new set of clothes,” she said. “And if they want to ask for asylum, lawyers can help them.”
Rivera said the center is coordinating with the nonprofit Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project to provide legal services for families seeking asylum.
Other goals, she said, are to start educational programs for the children who don’t get an opportunity to attend school while they wait for their asylum cases to be heard, which can take many months. And to open a shop where the parents can sell products that they’ve made. “A lot of the people who come through here—they’re very talented people,” Rivera said. “They had careers or practiced a trade in their own country. If we can get a little shop started, they can sell their things and earn a day’s wages and feel more independent.”
Rivera said they have many ambitious hopes for the new center, which she acknowledges will take some time. “It’s growing pains right now,” she said. “We’d love to do a playground there, too. Eventually, we’ll get there.”
Orlowski said he thinks of the center as an “asylum support organization” as asylum seeking families wait in limbo for the U.S. government to restart the process. “If there was an expedient way to get quicker crossings for these people, we wouldn’t have to have the shelters,” Orlowski said. “People could come in, and we’d set them up with the information they need. We’d give them access to computers and printers and they could make their packages for presentation and then they’d be off in a couple of days.”
For the Mexican and Central American families seeking asylum, the plan was never to stay in Sonoyta for months, he said. “Everything that’s being created here is in direct response to the U.S. having a no asylum policy,” he said. “No one wants to live in a long-term shelter.”
To donate or seek information about volunteering at the Centro de Esperanza, contact Arlene Rivera at ariveracortes.sfh@gmail.com. Learn more about Shelters for Hope at https://www.sheltersforhope.com.