San Angelo Volunteers Relate Texas-Mexico Border Horror Stories

“They said this is a humanitarian thing,” Lloyd Eastman said. “Well, it’s a humanitarian disaster. There’s no two ways about it.”

Eastman, along with two other Salvation Army volunteers, returned to San Angelo from McAllen on Sept. 25, after spending 10 days serving refugees crossing the Mexico-Texas border.

In a week and a half, Eastman, and brothers Kenny and Eddie Burney, served approximately 1,700 meals to clusters of South and Central American women and children who had just completed journeys ranging from weeks to months to enter the United States.

Tales of heat, exhaustion, harsh conditions and abuse were not uncommon among the travelers, all of which arrived with only the clothes on their backs and bus ticket, fueled by hope of escaping corruption and violence in their home countries.

“Some of the stories they told us was pretty rough,” Eddie Burney said. “I know this because there was an old lady there interviewing one and there was interpreters, so we got to sit there and listen to it. She said she couldn’t send her kids to school because the gangs will wait outside the schools wanting to recruit them, wanting to recruit the boys and have the girls in the sex trade.

“There were a lot of kidnapping victims there. They had to pay the kidnappers to turn them loose so they could come over,” he said.

Anywhere between 50 and 100 people from Brazil, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and other countries south of Mexico flooded through the refugee camp on a daily basis, volunteers estimate, the vast majority of which were women under 30 or 35 with small children clinging to their sides.

Once in the U.S., the refugees went directly to immigration, where officials made sure they had a court date scheduled permitting them to stay in the country, bus tickets were checked, and shoelaces were removed.

Members of the Salvation Army and various volunteer organizations waited at the bus stop for newcomers, inviting them back to the refugee camp where they were served meals of chicken noodle or chicken vegetable soup, given new clothes, and permitted to sleep in air-conditioned tents if their buses weren’t leaving till the next day.

“… we fed them soup because that was the only thing they could really take and not get sick over,” Eddie explained. “They tried initially—in June they were feeding them fried chicken and all that, and they got ill. Their stomach wouldn’t handle it.”

The refugee camp in McAllen was set up on June 2, and has served fledglings from Central and South America since. Initially, a stream of immigrants averaging 350 a day flooded through the camp, Kenny estimated, slowing only recently to an approximate third of the initial number.

“What I heard is basically the reason is they’re trying to get away from the criminal element in their countries,” Eastman explained. “Old Mexico is well known for its police being corrupt, but it’s just as bad in these other countries…if you don’t fall in with the criminal element, you’re in trouble.”

When Eastman and the Burney brothers arrived in McAllen, they were met with a situation none of them has ever experienced before. Having volunteered at various natural disasters in the past, including tornados, hurricanes and fires, the three said they were taken aback by the number and state of the people they were feeding.

“The biggest impact was the children,” Eastman said. “I mean, let’s face it, when you see these little kids coming in and they’re hungry…this one woman hadn’t eaten in about three days and she was nursing a child. The child hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours.”

“The woman’s dried up because she hasn’t eaten in three days, so we crushed up some bananas and fed them to the baby,” Kenny added.

With their shoelaces taken at the border to prevent suicide and running, a lack of food and several weeks of travel, the volunteers said the immigrants appeared overwhelmed when they arrived.

Many clung to their clothes and didn’t want to give up the only items they’d brought with them from their home countries, but fear of parasites and infection made sacrificing their belongings a necessity, and each was given a new set of clothes and shoes in the camps.

Portuguese, Spanish and Mayan language speaking volunteers tended to the immigrants, translating when necessary for the west Texas men and relaying some of the stories told by those who had just arrived.

“Most of them paid somebody to take them [across the border], and it’s like $5-$15,000 a person,” Kenny explained. “You wonder where they get the money. One lady said, ‘I borrowed it, I begged, I did everything I could just to get the money’.”

One volunteer, a woman who had made the trip 15 years ago, shared her story with Eastman and the Burneys.

“..she was actually from Honduras,” Eddie said. “She made the trip 15 years ago and she said they actually welded her inside a truck, inside a fake box in a truck, standing up for three days. She couldn’t go to the bathroom or anything. They told her two days ahead of time, ‘If you’re getting on the truck on this day, do not eat or drink anything’.”

While in McAllen, the San Angelo volunteers heard various tales of travel that included all means possible: boats, buses, cars, foot. They said several had expressed that they were handled well by the coyotes—the people paid to bring them into the country—while others complained of horrible conditions and abuse.

The men admitted that prior to arriving in McAllen they had mixed feelings about permitting so many immigrants to flood into the country, but after having seen and heard about the hardships firsthand, their perspectives have changed.

“My first thought on these people coming across was if they’ve got mothers with them, send them back,” Eastman said. “I kind of changed my thought on that because of the kids. The horror stories that you heard and so forth. I don’t know what the final solution would be on this. After seeing it down there I’ve changed my mind to a degree.”

“You want these countries to take care of their own people, but to see these people come across your heart goes out to them,” Kenny picked up. “They’re in a brand-new country, and talk about culture shock.”

Eastman, Kenny and Eddie Burney said that the experience of volunteering in McAllen has shown them that there is definitely a need for assistance on the border, however all added that they couldn’t conceive of an actual solution to the refugee problem.

Armed with the Salvation Army’s mobile canteen, which has a six-burner stove and 30-gallon tilt skillet, the three say they can make up to 3,000 meals a day, including soups, hot dogs and goulashes, and all three would like to go back to McAllen to further assist.

With Christmas around the corner, however, the trio will remain in San Angelo until after the holidays, and if there is still a need on the border thereafter, consider returning for a two-week period.

“It was an honor to serve down there,” Eddie said. “It was a privilege to take part in. And we’re always looking for volunteers.”

If you’re interested in volunteering, contact the Salvation Army at 325-655-3838. Volunteers typically go out for two-week periods, and assist with both local fires and disasters in other states such as tornados and hurricanes... and a refuge crisis.