On Sunday, January 6 we welcomed to our Rector’s Forum Nora Phillips — Legal Director of Al Otro Lado and force of nature. Nora is a valiant champion of love, justice and compassion and her witness to the challenges of the crisis on our border for immigrants and refugees was sobering, powerful and compelling. (You can watch her conversation with Mike Kinman on YouTube here.)

On Friday, February 1st this tweet showed up in our Twitter feed:

From the follow up story in today’s L.A. Times: [photo above: Al Seib]

Phillips, the legal and litigation director for Al Otro Lado, said she was detained Thursday evening after flying to Guadalajara for a planned vacation with her husband and 7-year-old daughter.

Mexican immigration agents scanned her passport and told her it triggered “an alert,” she said.

Phillips said she was separated from her daughter and husband and escorted into a separate room in which Mexican officials peppered her with questions, including about how much money she was carrying, whether she had weapons training, and whether she ever had been arrested or convicted of a crime.

Her daughter was standing just outside the room and started crying. She was allowed to join her mother while the pair were detained for nine hours and had to sleep on a cold floor without food or water, Phillips said. Ultimately, they were turned away and placed on a flight back to Los Angeles.

At a news conference upon her return at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, Phillips said Mexican officials insinuated that it wasn’t Mexico that had placed the alert. She believes the U.S. government is to blame …

The article continues:

Administration officials have repeatedly accused immigration attorneys of coaching migrants to make false asylum claims. In 2017, then-Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions criticized what he called “dirty immigration lawyers who are encouraging their otherwise unlawfully present clients to make false claims of asylum.”

“I think this is retaliation,” Phillips said. “I think this is because we sued the U.S. government. I think it’s that we’re pointing out gross, flagrant human rights violations being committed by the U.S. government, and they don’t like that.”

Pinheiro, the group’s policy and litigation director, said Mexican immigration officials turned her away under similar circumstances Monday as she sought to cross into Tijuana on foot. Pinheiro, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana, said she was denied the chance to fetch her 10-month-old son, who has dual citizenship and was in Tijuana at the time.

We will continue to track this story and share if and when there are actions we can take to support the work of Al Otro Lado. In the meantime, it bears noting that the Episcopal Church through the Public Policy Network (EPPN) of our Office of Government Relations issued this statement on the Border Crisis:

The Episcopal Church, through its official policies, recognizes the legitimate need to protect borders and address security threats. At the same time, the Church urges that nations should uphold their commitments and legal obligations to respect the rights and dignity of legal asylum applicants.

The U.S. does not need to employ increased militarization of the border in response to migrants seeking to exercise their legal rights under U.S. law. The southern border is a dynamic place that offers opportunity for collaboration and exchange as people cross the border every day to go to work, go shopping, or take their children to school. We urge our elected officials to begin a reasoned debate about appropriate border security, while recognizing the imperative that we have a humane and compassionate immigration policy.

We urge Congress and the Administration to work together to address legitimate security needs, to ensure we carry out our legal responsibility to process asylum seekers, and treat all migrants with humanity and respect. Further, we must look at how U.S. policies can address root causes and help alleviate the conditions that drive forced migration in Central and South America.

The Episcopal Church urges the federal government to invest in alternatives to detention that are less costly and more compassionate, uphold due process and our legal obligations to those seeking asylum, invest in modernizing our ports of entry, and increase oversight and accountability in order to enhance efficiency at our border. Such comprehensive solutions will allow the U.S. to uphold its highest ideals of being a beacon of freedom for all while also addressing human needs and enhancing opportunities for the future.

So when All Saints stands in solidarity with Al Otro Lado and all those working to respect the dignity of every human being during this time of challenge in our nation in general and at our border in specific we do so on the firm foundation of living out our baptismal covenant and in alignment with the work and witness of the wider Episcopal Church.

Finally, the work of Al Otro Lado was the topic of Episode 8 of our ASC podcast: Studio ASC. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts … or listen here… and spread the word as we work together to be the chance we want to see in our world.