> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • Our Transition to a Nonprofit
Sign In
  • Latest Articles
  • Advice
  • Opinion
  • Webinars
  • Data & Research
  • Grants
  • Magazine
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Data
    • Reports
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Webinars
    • Featured Products
    • Data
    • Reports
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Webinars
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
Sign In
  • Latest Articles
  • Advice
  • Opinion
  • Webinars
  • Data & Research
  • Grants
  • Magazine
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Data
    • Reports
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Webinars
    • Featured Products
    • Data
    • Reports
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Webinars
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
  • Latest Articles
  • Advice
  • Opinion
  • Webinars
  • Data & Research
  • Grants
  • Magazine
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Data
    • Reports
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Webinars
    • Featured Products
    • Data
    • Reports
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Webinars
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
Opinion
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

Philanthropy’s Focus on the Southern U.S. Border Crisis Is Urgent

By  Ana Marie Argilagos
December 18, 2018
Families from Central America taking part in a caravan to the United States climb into a container truck in Guanajuato, in Central Mexico.
Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images
Families from Central America taking part in a caravan to the United States climb into a container truck in Guanajuato, in Central Mexico.

As Americans gear up for the holidays, a humanitarian crisis continues to unfold at our nation’s border. Over the next few months, an estimated 6,000 individuals — children, women, and families — will continue to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border after having walked through treacherous conditions for months at a time. Parents on this dangerous trek are aware of the grave risk they expose their families to: crossing rivers swollen from rain, extreme heat, lack of food and shelter, and the toll on the human body. However, the violence they face in their home countries far outweighs these risks.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from v144.philanthropy.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

As Americans gear up for the holidays, a humanitarian crisis continues to unfold at our nation’s border. Over the next few months, an estimated 6,000 individuals — children, women, and families — will continue to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border after having walked through treacherous conditions for months at a time. Parents on this dangerous trek are aware of the grave risk they expose their families to: crossing rivers swollen from rain, extreme heat, lack of food and shelter, and the toll on the human body. However, the violence they face in their home countries far outweighs these risks.

In recent weeks, we have seen tensions rise at the San Diego–Tijuana border, where hundreds of Central American migrants — including women and children — are fleeing from violent attacks in Tijuana, Mexico, enveloped in tear gas and hit with rubber bullets.

While the images of children being kept in cages from the summer have faded from the headlines, the reality is that every day hundreds of asylum seekers fleeing the worst of conditions arrive at our borders. Nearly half of the exodus is made up of women and children with little access to food, water, or safe places to sleep, according to the Central America and Mexico Migration Alliance , a Hispanics in Philanthropy project based in Mexico.

The families and others at the border are walking north in desperation. But the cruel reality is that under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, which is imposing increased restrictions on asylum seekers — and is layered upon a severely broken immigration system — the most vulnerable are being left unprotected and without any options. The White House imposed its policy to deter Central American families from making the dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the policy, the government separated thousands of children from their parents, shipping them off to state detention centers with no plan on how they would reunite families.

As grant makers and citizens, we need to take a stand against family separations, against the criminalization of immigrants, against the trauma and loss created by our own policies. And we need to support the organizations that are providing legal representation, shelter, and medical care to these migrants — organizations that are already stretched well beyond their limits.

ADVERTISEMENT

In-Person Investigation

Responding to this urgent call, Hispanics in Philanthropy, the California Endowment, and other philanthropic leaders, will be traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border later this week.

This past summer, during the beginning of the family-separation crisis, HIP brought together a 50-member delegation of the country’s most important philanthropic organizations to better understand the process migrants undergo as they reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

What we discovered during that first visit left us all deeply concerned. In San Diego, the immigration court system was systematically ensuring that immigrants were criminalized, invisible, and voiceless. The San Diego justice system takes the Trump policy to heart, putting into the works a rapidly moving process of overcriminalization and prosecution of those crossing the border, including asylum seekers. It imposed Operation Streamline — a court procedure that critics refer to as “assembly-line justice” or the “steamroller.” Many of the federal defenders were forced to represent multiple clients with little to no time to speak with the clients to explain the process. Defendants arrived in court from a Border Patrol station where they were denied basic necessities. No legal counsel. No translators. No food. No chance at a fair hearing. No chance at asylum.

We are returning to the San Diego–Tijuana border this week because the situation we witnessed last August has not improved. In fact, it has grown ever more severe. Now migrants are being physically attacked, the U.S. communities that live along the border have become militarized, and U.S. Immigration & Custom Enforcement ended its “safe release” program, leaving detainees alone, confused, and helpless on American city streets.

Nowhere to Turn

Nonprofits on both sides of the border are stretched to their limits trying to support families in dire need. A legal advocacy network, which has been the lifeline for many, is now facing a challenge to handle hundreds of new cases daily. And we realized more clearly than ever that asylum seekers coming to America’s borders truly have nowhere else to turn but to the United States.

ADVERTISEMENT

The migrants currently walking north are not only facing immense challenges on their journey; upon their arrival, they will also face growing bigotry that is being fueled by our current political climate. This is a profound irony, considering that the current political and economic turmoil in Central America stems from decades of U.S. meddling in the region, destabilizing governments and economies. To compound this, America’s own growing appetite for illegal drugs (over $100 billion annually) is responsible in part for the increased drug trafficking and gang violence throughout the region that people are fleeing.

The United States helped to plant the seeds of poverty and violence in Central America that have grown, unchecked, over the last three decades — resulting in the current exodus.

It is worrisome that as the richest nation in the world, we continue to victimize those who seek asylum or refuge. What began earlier this year as a family-separation crisis at the border has now expanded into one of the most profound humanitarian challenges of our time, and we as a country have yet to identify a response that lines up with our own constitutional principles and ideals.

As we get ready to start a new year, we challenge our brethren in philanthropy to stay the course for the long term with both their money and their access to the bully pulpit. Even when the news media takes the spotlight off the crisis at the border, none of us can forget the families that are walking thousands of miles for a chance at survival.

Will those seeking asylum seekers arrive only to suffer — or will we receive them as our neighbors, embodying our American values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Philanthropy can and must make a difference in preserving lives and preserving the very meaning of philanthropy: goodwill to fellow members of the human race.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ana Marie Argilagos is chief executive of Hispanics in Philanthropy and Robert K. Ross is chief executive of the California Endowment.

Read other items in this Immigrant Donors and Philanthropy's Efforts to Help Immigrants in Need package.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
AdvocacyFoundation Giving

Op-Ed Submission Guidelines

The Chronicle’s Opinion section is designed to spark robust debate about all aspects of the nonprofit world. We welcome submissions that provide new insights and promote innovative thinking about leadership, fundraising, grant-making policy, and more.
See details about how to submit an opinion piece or letter to the editor.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

  • Nonprofit Leaders Add to Outpouring of Fury Over Border Policies
  • Explore
    • Latest Articles
    • Get Newsletters
    • Advice
    • Webinars
    • Data & Research
    • Magazine
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Latest Articles
    • Get Newsletters
    • Advice
    • Webinars
    • Data & Research
    • Magazine
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Work at the Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Gift-Acceptance Policy
    • Site Map
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Work at the Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Gift-Acceptance Policy
    • Site Map
    • DEI Commitment Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Organizational Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Organizational Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Philanthropy
  • twitter
  • youtube
  • pinterest
  • facebook
  • linkedin