Asylum seekers at border find a little Christmas cheer but miss old holiday traditions
After fleeing violence in their Guatemalan town, but with their way to relatives in California blocked by continuing U.S. asylum restrictions, a family of 15 joined an Advent candlelight ceremony organized by their shelter just south of the border.The evening service in the Buen Samaritano shelter's small Methodist church, which doubles as a cafeteria, didn't quite compare with the weekslong Christmas celebrations they had loved in Nueva Concepcion.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court this week not to lift pandemic-era restrictions on asylum-seekers before the holiday weekend. A lower court had already granted the administration's request to have until December 21 before rolling back the restrictions, known as Title 42. The restrictions have been used more than 2.5 million times to expel asylum-seekers who crossed into the U.S. illegally and to turn away most of those requesting asylum at the border.
The city's shelters are already packed beyond capacity, leaving little time for celebrations and many migrants camped out in the streets in below-freezing weather. The Rev. Brian Strassburger, a Jesuit priest who ministers to migrants on both sides of the border some 800 miles away in Texas's Rio Grande Valley, also saw parallels between the Holy Family's journey and the experiences of the migrants who participated with him in a posada celebration at the Casa del Migrante shelter in Reynosa, Mexico.
"We kind of enact the posada every day," said Strassburger, who also plans to celebrate Mass at shelters on Christmas Day.
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