Katherine Rowell, Mohsen Khani and students have seen the lives of illegal immigrants in Mexico as a part of their yearly trip to the country.
Rowell, the director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, said that for the recent trip, eight students went with two teachers. However, because of concerns over violence on the U.S.-Mexico border, the group could not cross into Mexico. They stayed on the Arizona side of the border.
Rowell said it wasn’t the same perspective but it was still interesting.
“We ended up going to a federal court on the U.S. side and learned about something called Operation Streamline,” Rowell said.
Operation Streamline is a program developed by the U.S. Border Patrol to try and curb illegal immigration by detaining and bringing up charges on illegal immigrants.
Rowell said that the group saw detained illegal immigrants being brought up on charges in the courthouse. All of the immigrants were shackled at their feet, waist and arms Rowell said. The detainees then plead guilty or not-guilty.
Because of a lack of room in the Arizona prisons, the authorities cannot put the detainees in prison, Rowell said.
“They just take them to the border [and release them],” Rowell said.
Khani, a geography professor said the students signed up for a one credit hour course and the day before leaving the students learned a bit about what to expect, but that didn’t totally prepare them for the trip.
“Hearing the chains, it reminded you of slavery,” Khani said. “That was something we hadn’t seen before.”
One of the students that attended the trip was Ben Wurst.
“The first day really hit me hard,” Wurst said. “Walking into that courtroom, it was very eye-opening. The [detainees] were all shackled and it really looked like something from the past.”
Wurst said the entire trip—and in particular being in the courtroom—got him thinking.
“It got me thinking about how we treat people differently or label people just based off where they were born,” Wurst said.
“Why do we treat you differently just because you were born on the other side of a line on a map?” Wurst said.
Rowell said the thing with community college students is, few of them have the time or resources to go on a week long trip.
“We were trying to find a place to take our students that was short-term and affordable,” Rowell said.
But, Rowell said, the place had to show students what it would be like to live in an impoverished country.
“So, we developed a relationship with an organization called Borderlinks. They specialize in short-term and long-term trips to the U.S.-Mexican border,” Rowell said.
Sinclair was the first community college taken on a trip by Borderlinks, Rowell said.
Generally, the trip follows the same path, Rowell said. Leaving on a Friday, they would fly from Columbus, Ohio to Tucson, Arizona, and from there drive in a van straight into Mexico, Rowell said.
“We usually go to a migrant area called Altar, where we meet people that have tried to illegally cross the border and were caught, or who will try again, or people who are trying for the first time,” Rowell said.
After that, the group will split into two and spend the night with a family living on the border. Rowell said that they learn about the lives of the families and can see how impoverished they are.
The trip sometimes includes what Rowell called a ‘desert cleanup,’ where the group spends time cleaning up garbage in the desert. Rowell said the group has filled up two pickup trucks worth of trash in the past.