Day 6: Final Remarks!

Hi! As we munch on some juicy watermelon, we'd like to report to you on our last full day of our trip, also the last blog day. Today, we first went to a mural in downtown Las Cruces. After, we went to a hospitality center and took a tour of the area. The building was split up into a common area, dorms, children's play area, and recreational areas outside. Half of us stayed at the hospitality center where we sanitized the kid play room, laid down cots for new guests, and organized supplies in the warehouse. The other half went to a hotel where the guests stayed previous to the opening of the new location. We helped clean up the place for an hour. After doing community service, we went to get lunch at a local tamal, burrito and donut shop. 

After lunch we met with Leonardo Castañeda, a reporter for the ACLU-NM, who gave us a presentation about asylum in the US. He described how there are many ways in which the border system is ineffective because of the areas that don't have a physical border and shared his opinion about the inefficiency of the checkpoints. He also gave us insight into the horrid conditions of the privately-owned shelters in New Mexico. 

As our trip winds down, it is bittersweet because we feel that we've gained a lot of new insights and have created a strong bond with one another. We've spoken to several different presenters about the asylum seeking process and the pathway to citizenship. We also discussed our individual beliefs on border policies and learned leadership skills that we used in civil discourse. With all the knowledge we've gained, we hope to inform others back home about the immigration processes and encourage them to be more open minded about embracing immigrants in their own communities. 

- Jimena & Charlie