Resources to Learn about the Border

Sarah Steinmann
Sep 15, 2019
2 min read

The trip last week was a journey, a path of learning from beginning to end. I went to the border with We Welcome Refugees, an organization seeking to equip women with a faith-based response to the border and immigration. We met in El Paso and crossed into Juárez, and we heard stories from immigrants, faith leaders, border patrol, and community leaders. We sought to listen; we sought to love. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share of my experience in the order it took place, and I invite you to join me in what I’ve learned, am still learning.

Before the trip, we were first asked to study: how else are we to love unless we listen, and how else are we to care unless we see? Below are the resources they provided - these have been foundational to my understanding of what is happening at the border. I invite you, and even entreat on behalf of my brothers and sisters at the border, to take the first step of learning by dedicating time to hear of their plight, to seek to listen. If you’ve wanted to learn about what is happening at the border, how past and current policy impacts other countries and our own, and how our faith connects to it all, these resources are a great place to start. I’d love to hear if you’ve been able to use them!

In posting of my trip, my goal mirrors the hope of my whole life: to know Jesus more, to love Jesus and people more too. My prayer for what I share is that it will be an outward, lived expression of the gospel as it translates from my heart directly to my hands. The border has become political, of course – it remains a complex and intricate situation - and my goal is to share from love what I’ve seen, to provide insight into current realities, and to offer a framework as you engage with this topic yourself. If my words feel divisive or false or unbiblical, I ask: please reach out. Let’s meet in person. Let’s humanize when the norm would be to objectify. Let’s connect when the standard would be to distance. Let’s learn to love, together.

And so, it begins. Thanks for joining!

Articles:

Fact Sheet: U.S. Asylum Process

Infographic: Remain In Mexico Impacts

Immigration lawyers: We saw what's happening at the US-Mexico border. It's a tragic farce.

US moves to abolish child migrant custody limits

Jesus at the Border

Podcast Episodes:

Only in America with Ali Noorani:

“Bearing Witness Along the Border” - Reverend Beth Cossin

"They’re Children First, and Immigrants Second” - Wendy Young (Kids In Need of Defense - KIND)

“Embrace Immigrants the Way Scripture Calls Us To” - Jenny Yang & Matt Soerens (World Relief)