Signifying a developing pathway or a natural place where a river is shallow enough to cross. Our desire is to cultivate space where people move in humility across divides, learn from each other, and jointly address pressing concerns in love.

Abara Borderland Connections, a nonprofit based in El Paso, TX, seeks to foster deeper understanding about the realities of immigration and life on the border. Abara was born out of the long-term work of a neighborhood-based, faith-rooted ministry known as Ciudad Nueva.

Abara cultivates opportunities for understanding, serving, and loving across divides through education, encounters, and response. Today, Abara is focused on accomplishing this mission by:

Facilitating encounters on the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso & Ciudad Juarez

Resourcing and connecting migrant shelters on both sides of the border

Collaborating with other organizations East to West along the U.S.-Mexico border and along the migrant pathways from Central America

Beyond the Encounter is a deeper dive into understanding some of the realities of the border through the voices and perspectives of those who live here and call this bi-national community home.

Abara offers a brief summary. Few people want to leave their homeland, culture, family, or the familiarity of one’s life. Many who seek refuge, or who are forcibly displaced, sojourn throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Cuba, and various African nations.

The primary pathways for migration are often linked to:

Blood (Family-Based immigration)

Sweat (Employment-Based Immigration)

Tears (Refugee or Asylee Status)

Chance (The Diversity Visa-Lottery is another pathway)

“Violence and insecurity, poverty and family reunification remain important drivers of migration from Central America.” World Migration Report Stats (pgs. 104-113)

“The estimated number and proportion of international migrants already surpasses some projections made for the year 2050, which were in the order of 2.6 per cent or 230 million.10 That said, it is widely recognized that the scale and pace of international migration is notoriously difficult to predict with precision because it is closely connected to acute events (such as severe instability, economic crisis or conflict) as well as long-term trends (such as demographic change, economic development, communications technology advances and transportation access).” - World Migration Report

Currently and for the past 10 months, Title 42 has turned away almost all asylum seekers arriving at the US-Mexico border due to COVID-19 concerns. However, the US will start admitting asylum seekers who have been waiting in Mexico for up to a year and a half throughout MPP (known as “Remain in Mexico”). On February 26th, 2021, 25 migrants arrived at Annunciation House hospitality centers in El Paso, before transportation is arranged to their sponsor families elsewhere in the United States.

As many as 300 migrants per day are now being processed until the number reaches a total number of 10,000 who are based in our border community.

The local Office of Emergency Management is running a quarantine hotel site for anyone who is identified as COVID positive.

Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as "Remain in Mexico" officially stopped taking new enrollments on January 20 of this year. When the program ended, there were over 70,000 people enrolled, the majority waiting in Mexican border towns from Brownsville all the way to Tijuana. In January there were an estimated 10,000 active cases in our sister city of Ciudad Juárez.

In late February, DHS began allowing groups of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico under MPP to cross into the US and have their asylum cases processed. For over a month now, we have been welcoming groups into El Paso every day, who then head on to reunite with family and friends waiting for them in different parts of the US. This has been a very smooth and orderly process with tremendous cross-border collaboration between dozens of government agencies, NGO's and churches.

El Paso has also been receiving migrant families in the local shelter network who crossed down in the Rio Grande Valley, 800 miles southeast of El Paso. Border Patrol has been flying daily groups into El Paso to relieve the pressure in the Rio Grande Valley, where officials can no longer return families with young children to Mexico due to changes in Mexican state laws. Most of these families are returned to Mexico through El Paso but a small number are released and receive shelter before traveling on to reunite with family and friends.

Title 42 (a pandemic-era CDC protocol instated last March) is still in effect and is turning away most asylum seekers who are not minors through a process called "expulsion", without opening a case for them at all. Exceptions are unaccompanied minors and families with young children arriving in the Rio Grande Valley. Title 42 also continues to keep the border closed to Mexicans with legal visas.

Unaccompanied minors are not automatically returned to Mexico. Instead they are taken into US custody temporarily, then placed in shelters exclusively for unaccompanied children in the US or Mexico, or released to sponsors (family or foster homes) while their cases are processed.

El Paso was one of the 3 ports of entry to start processing arrivals across the border, with a few more ports of entry being added over time. The local Office of Emergency Management is running a quarantine hotel site for anyone who is identified as COVID positive. The UNHCR is working closely with the US government to process those enrolled in MPP, test for COVID, quarantine those in need, and then facilitate an orderly entry into the US to complete their series of asylum court hearings.

Immigrants are one of largest economic contributers in the United States, in 2017 paying over $405.4 billion in taxes, including an estimated $27.2 Billon in taxes paid by undocumented immigrants

Abara recently wrapped up the first cohort of an 11-week Race Literacy Course. Over the past few weeks, Abara’s team had phenomenal guest speakers including Dylan Corbett, Director of Hope Border Institute here in El Paso; Dominique DuBois Gilliard, nationally renowned racial justice author and advocate; Alexia Salvatierra, faith-rooted advocacy organizer and Lutheran pastor; and Vince Bantu, assistant professor of church history and Black church studies at Fuller Seminary. Each voice has challenged participants, inviting them to think about the ways in which the church and other hegemonic institutions have perpetuated racism in our country. Abara is already looking forward to a second cohort.

Abara categorically and unequivocally rejects racism and violence against Asian Americans. We wholly devote ourselves to the dismantling of harmful institutions and ideologies which perpetuate violence against Asian Americans: White supremacy, the patriarchy, xenophobia, fetishization/sexualization of Asian women.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Abara is not incorporated as a religious organization. We are faith-rooted in our posture (Christian/Catholic tradition), looking to engage with anyone interested in crossing divides, learning from other perspectives and moving toward holistic engagement. In the scope of this mission, we partner with Christian/Catholic faith groups, interfaith as well as non-faith groups. We hope to cultivate an environment where people from all sorts of backgrounds can come together in exploring how we can be living in right relationship with each other, moving past whatever barriers we are bringing to the table - religious, ethnic, cultural, national, personal. Many of the groups who visit with us are coming from a wide variety of protestant Christian traditions, and for these groups we try to provide faith-rooted opportunities to understand and engage in these issues.

Team Abara attempts to embody a non-Western expression of faith with a focus on joining the great invitation – the global story of good news with those on the move. The early church in the Ancient Near East circulated letters between communities backed by mustard seeds of love. Abara is in relationship with faith leaders through a global exchange of learning between border cities. These relationships expand the team’s capacity to stand in the gap as peace builders in a world of trauma. In response, Team Abara is a Big Tent working to create pathways for common ground as we partner with pastors, leaders, students, advocates, artists, creatives, and anyone open to loving our most vulnerable neighbors who are displaced through blood, sweat, and tears.

We join with others as Christ welcomes all.