Accompaniment – Border Immersions and ECAS

When the numbers of Central Americans fleeing the human rights crisis in Central America grew in 2018, we led multiple border immersion experiences for churches and organizations across the country seeking to understand and assist. In keeping with our core philosophy, we utilized Puentes as small group guides and visited Mexican churches caring for asylum-seekers to highlight the power of the Spirit working through people who are often disregarded. We “changed the hero”, opening the eyes of non-immigrant church leaders to God’s agents from the margins.

In May of 2019, we became the lead agency for the new Ecumenical Collaboration for Asylum Seekers – engaging four denominations and several independent organizations in working together to accompany asylum seekers. We began by working with legal services provider “Al Otro Lado” in working to reunite families whose children had been taken from them in 2017 at the border. We were able to bring a strong contingent of over 20 faith leaders to the border to enable the families to cross, and we then found hosts and supporters for four of the families in Southern California. Since then, ECAS has developed an alternative model for refugee resettlement in which immigrants and non-immigrants work together with the support of Puentes to accompany and support asylum-seekers. A unique aspect of our program is our family network – which brings guests together for mutual support and leadership development. Our part-time family coordinator supports the families, carries out referrals to services and organizes the network. We currently operate seven support circles currently throughout Southern California and have provided long-term care for 28 hosted individuals, referrals for over 97 to services, and since COVID, support for an additional 7 individuals who are not hosted by our circles but are cared for by us. We also catalyzed the formation of a support network using this model in the quasi-rural Fresno area of Central California, where now two of our families have been able to find employment and affordable housing.