Each story of a migrant leaving their home country for another, regardless of the reason, is always incredibly personal and an individual experience. However, as I discovered last week, just because it’s personal doesn’t mean that it’s special.
This past week, Texas Impact staff, including myself, went down to the Texas-Mexico border on a Courts & Ports trip. Over the course of two days, we attended various immigration court proceedings, crossed the border into Matamoros, and visited with a Haitian migrant. This was my very first Courts and Ports trip and my expectations didn’t match the news headlines I have previously seen. There wasn’t chaos, just people endlessly waiting.
There were Haitian migrants waiting in the streets, many of them waiting for a spot, or a chance, to see the local doctor, who most likely can’t provide them with the medical assistance they needed. And this was normal. This was an average day for those migrants living in the border town of Matamoros. The story of the Haitian migrant we spoke with, who I’ll refer to as John, seemed all too familiar as well.
John, the 37-year-old Haitian migrant, left his country hoping to escape fear and danger, replacing those sentiments with opportunity, safety, and hope, all too common desires. John migrated to Chile, then north to Mexico, accompanied by his wife and two children, a long journey that started back in 2016. This past November, John was separated from his wife and children while crossing the border, despite his wife’s broken arm. John’s story exemplifies how unfairly the U.S. immigration process treats migrants regardless of their individual circumstances, but John is just one of a thousand migrants who share the same history.
Thousands of migrants, just like John, leave their country out of fear; and climate hazards have increasingly become a prominent motivator. The Sixth Assessment Report from the IPCC confirms that climate migration and displacement from Central and South America are becoming more frequent and will continue to increase as climate hazards intensify. The countries of origin and recipient countries need increased preparation and implementation of adaptation strategies to survive these climate hazards and handle climate migration. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and droughts are only a few climate hazards that displace individuals from their homes. However, without climate action and climate finance, more individuals are going to make the arduous journey toward safety.
Unfortunately, Johns’s story isn’t special. The shocking part of the Courts & Ports trip was discovering that these stories and individuals are a dime a dozen. There’s no crazy situation or movie-like scenario; just the average individual trying to achieve a better quality of life. These people’s stories become so commonplace that the shock factor is the fact that these dark and disturbing stories have lost their individuality, and they shouldn’t have.