Elket Rodriguez addresses misinformation about immigration

Elket Rodriguez, an immigrant and refugee specialist, works for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest. He addresses common myths about immigrants, and offers four practical suggestions for how you can help.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason, and we're continuing today are series on immigration, a human story. And I'm delighted to welcome to the program, Elket Rodriguez, who is an immigrant, and refugee advocacy and mission specialist, serving down on the border, the Texas/US Mexico border, for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest. Elket, so glad to have you with us.

Elket Rodriguez:
No, it's an honor for me to be here with you, pastor. Like I said before, I've read a lot about you. I've heard some of your sermons. And so, it is my honor to be here with you this evening.

George Mason:
Well, thank you very much. So, this is a challenge that we have as a nation. It's a challenge we have as people of faith, of course, too, as we think about this work. And you work for these religiously based organizations, one of them Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, obviously a Baptist group. The other, a broader ecumenical Christian group, Fellowship Southwest, that really specializes in working on the border. But I'd like to begin by asking you about your own story. Tell us about the Rodriguez family and about you, and how you came to be where you are in doing what you're doing.

Elket Rodriguez:
Well, it's a long story, but I'll try to be short. No. So, I've always had this call to... I always knew that I had a call to ministry, right? And so, I worked in Puerto Rico. I'm a Puerto Rican myself. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. My whole family was born and raised in Puerto Rico. My wife is too. My children as well. And so, when I was in Puerto Rico, I had a call to ministry, but I felt like God was opening opportunities for me to work professionally, so I became an attorney.

Elket Rodriguez:
I worked as child abuse prosecutor. And at the same time, I became a legislative assistant in the Puerto Rico's legislature. Just to make the long story short, I don't know if you remember the Hurricane Maria-

George Mason:
Oh, yes.

Elket Rodriguez:
... in 2017. Well, I was there and so, I experienced how a beautiful island became this very... I mean, I've never seen my island the way I saw it that day, after the hurricane. And so, I was praying to God saying where should I go next? And long story short, I started feeling this call to come to the United States, which was in the works, let's say, months before the hurricane hit. But my wife and I, we were very, I would say, not in the position of moving. Obviously when you live 15 minutes from a lot of beaches, you don't want to move, right? But after the hurricane, I prayed to God, and I started moving down that path. I felt that call. My wife was in it with me. So I told God, "You know what, if you want me, if we feel like you're calling us to the states and you're calling us to Texas, you're going to have to provide a job very quick." And low and behold, I had a job two weeks after, or a month after.

Elket Rodriguez:
And so, I came to the states. I went to the city of Midland, Texas. That's where I ended up. I became a CPS, a child protective services investigator. And I used to visit the local church, which was First Baptist Church in Midland. I started Spanish Sunday school, Spanish class there because I felt God was opening that opportunity to serve the community. And well, eventually an opportunity opened up in Harlingen, Texas where I'm right now, to become an immigration attorney. But I always had that ministerial background. So every time I met a client, it wasn't like, "I'm going to take your case and that's it." We're going to have a transactional relationship, right? So it was always a relational relationship. And so, that's how all this happened, and so, there was an opportunity to work for CBF and Fellowship Southwest as a-

George Mason:
Well, this raises an interesting point that I wanted to get to later, but let's just start talking about it now, because Hurricane Maria was the product of what I think most people would acknowledge is climate change. That yes, we've always had hurricanes, but Maria was one of the most devastating and unusual hurricanes to have hit the Caribbean. And so, it created for you a moment to evaluate whether you would stay where you were or migrate. So now, I think many people do not understand that the same thing is happening in central America, right? So, global warming, climate change has created conditions under which people have now said, "All right, I can't stay here any longer. I need to move." And that migration is a product in part of many factors we'll get to in a little while, but one of them is climate. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that for those of us who are in the United States and who yes, we experience some of these different changes in season and extreme weather, but this is different in central America, isn't it?

Elket Rodriguez:
It is different. And I'll answer that question with a quick story. So here in Harlingen, in Harlingen's airport, the Valley International Airport, there's a ministry called The House of Love and Justice, that's ran by a friend of mine and a dear colleague called Eddie Bernal. And so, what we do is, whenever migrants are left there or dropped there, and they don't know how to navigate the whole system, we go out there and we talk to them, right? And we try to shelter them until their plane comes up and we feed them all.

Elket Rodriguez:
So, one of the, I would say, we are seeing a lot of migrants, men with children and families that are coming because climate change is totally changing the whole dynamics about agriculture in their home countries. So there was this Guatemalan, who was dropped in the Harlingen airport. And as I started asking him the questions about why he came here and why he was at the border, one of the things that really struck me is the fact that he started by saying, "So before, I knew that I would have two harvests during the year to sell my fruits and my products. Now, it's just one. And the past two years, it's been zero." So climate change is really creating a very difficult situation for agricultural workers in central America.

Elket Rodriguez:
What's interesting is that those safe agricultural workers then don't have anything to provide for their families, and so, cartels show up and say, "You know what? You can work for it." But it's difficult to say no to them, because if you say no to them, then they're going to go against you, your family, and things like that. So, people ask me all the times, are they coming because of their fleeing violence, or are they coming because of climate change, or are they coming because there's a corrupt government? Well, these circumstances are all right now, happening together. And so, that's a normal... So this is not just one man. I've seen, let's say, this is becoming a regular pattern and this is a normal story that can give you a picture of what's happening right now in central America.

George Mason:
So, I think people would be interested in knowing what your daily work experience is. You are an attorney, you're a minister, you're an advocate at the border for immigrants and refugees. And so, what does that sort of daily rhythm look like? What's the work you do and how do you do it?

Elket Rodriguez:
So, it's a little bit of each of the things of advocacy, ministry and attorneys. So on a regular day, I can have consults. I can take on a consult from a migrant. I can take on consults from one of our border pastors that composes or comprises the Fellowship Southwest Immigrant Relief Ministry regarding how shifting immigration policies, especially at the border. Then I would go on and represent CPF and Fellowship Southwest in different meetings with national and regional coalitions about how we're going to advocate for immigrants and how we're going to protect immigrants in the midst of all this different policy changes.

Elket Rodriguez:
And there's a little bit of ministry as well. I get phone calls from migrants who really, the consults become therapies in a sense, because there are times when the only thing they need is someone that can listen to them. And I turn all of this things that I do in my life, all of these tasks, normally I turn them into articles. Why? Because I don't really believe that I'm a good advocate. The best advocate is the migrant itself, is the asylum seeker itself. So I want people to know their stories, to know what they're going through, because I think that their voices need to be lifted up.

George Mason:
Well, to that end, you have written several articles and I'm happy to post them with this podcast for other people to read. But I do think that it would be helpful to clip off some of the points that you've made, at least in one of these pieces, that you've really tried to expose some of the truths about the Mexico/US border and the reality there, because there's a lot of misinformation. There are a lot of myths about that. The first would be, that you assert at least, that most migrants do not want to leave their own home countries.

Elket Rodriguez:
Yes, yes. I mean, that's where I would start, with the myths, right? We're seeing that right now in the US. Who wants to leave their home to work in an office if they can work from their own homes? I mean, we're seeing that in our micro reality, but migrants do not want to leave their countries because they want to. They are forced to leave their countries. And if you ask them, "If things were good in your country, if you had a government that protects you, if you did not have cartels, if you could feed your own family, would you be there?" They would say, yes. They're not looking for the $100,000 job. They're just trying to survive.

George Mason:
Okay. All right. So, you cover that next in a point in this piece that the reasons why people flee persecution, corruption, government collapse, economic depression, criminal organizations, and global warming, but let's talk about the numbers of people who are coming. You say in this piece, also, the border is not open, but it is not closed either. Okay, that's talking out of both sides of your mouth, it sounds like, right? And many people, I think, coming from their own politic point of view, want to emphasize one thing over the other, and you're trying to say both things. Explain that.

Elket Rodriguez:
Oh, perfect. I'll try to explain that as quick as I can. So no, right now the government is implementing this policy. It has been dub title 42, which actually summarily expels migrants back to Mexico, and they do it in a very quick fashion. Now, I would say that the vast majority of asylum seekers that try to come through the border are going to be expelled through title 42, to Mexico, but the government always has discretion. Immigration officials can use their discretion to allow migrants to come in. And so, ever since the Biden administration came in, one of the things that quickly changed about the way we implemented title 42 was we started allowing for unaccompanied migrant children to enter the United States. Before you could see a five year old child being returned to Mexico, and being returned from one port of entry. I mean, the child would come through one port of entry and you would return it through another port of entry, which created a problem, a real problem and humanitarian issue.

Elket Rodriguez:
And I would say, it's very difficult to talk about it, but you're talking about sometimes two cartels. One cartel that controls this turf and you're returning that person to another territory. And so, we didn't know what would happen, we don't know what happened to those children. So one of the first things that happened was I'm going to allow unaccompanied migrant children.

Elket Rodriguez:
Second thing, second thing that happened is that more immigration officials started using their discretion to also allow into the United States, what they called vulnerable cases. The majority of them are women with children. Women with children that are going to be, if they were to be expelled, they would be in a very difficult position to protect themselves in Northern Mexico and they would be easy prey for cartels. And so, that was a shift in the way our immigration policies began being implemented after the Biden administration. So, what you are seeing right now is more migrants being allowed to come in to continue their asylum claims, their asylum cases, in the United States, if they are vulnerable and more unaccompanied, migrant children being allowed to come in, but still title 42 is being implemented all across the board. And I hope that gives you a little bit of perspective.

George Mason:
It does. Can you clarify title 42 and the remain in Mexico policy? Is that the same thing or are those two different things?

Elket Rodriguez:
No, those are two different policies. The remain in Mexico, it's what's right now being discussed in court. And at the same time, being struck down, which is kind of difficult to explain. But remain in Mexico was implemented in 2019, which is what we call MPP or migrant protection protocols. This policy, what it did is migrants, asylum seekers try to come in. And so, they were forced to remain in Mexico while their cases were being attended to in immigration court. And so, when the Biden administration came in, they did away with that policy. And so right now, it is not being implemented. What happened is that Texas and Missouri took a case to federal court about some months ago. And so, they won the case and the court, a Texas court order, I mean, federal judge, Texas ordered for MPP or the remain in Mexico policy to be re-implemented. They ordered the administration to do that.

Elket Rodriguez:
Now here's the thing. The administration said they would restart MPP or remain in Mexico by mid-November. But the issue is that, Mexico has not agreed still to the implementation of that policy. Have in mind that this is not a policy that the US can unilaterally implement. So right now, we are waiting for Mexico to see where they are. And so, at the same time, which is interesting, the administration last week issued a memorandum to strike down NPP. And you are saying, what? They're trying to implement it. But at the same time, they're trying to take it down or eliminate it? Well, they've been ordered to implement it because the memorandum was not sufficient, right? So they're doing a new memorandum to take it out. So they're trying to comply with an order, while at the same time, trying to strike down MPP, but it has not restarted yet. We're yet to see what Mexico will say in the next probably one or two weeks.

George Mason:
Okay. So, people think that there is a lot of violence at the border. In fact, sometimes you'll hear the language of the border is a war zone. That's not your experience though, right? So, tell us more about what is it like at the border?

Elket Rodriguez:
So I live at the border, which is interesting. I live in Harlingen, which is 30 minutes from Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, and 30 minutes from Mcallen, Reynosa, Mexico. I mean, that border. In reality, when you talk to families who live in the US from Mexican descent, and when you talk to Mexicans on the other side, there is a fairly common, I would say, sentence that they use or phrase which is, "I did not cross the border. The border crossed me." And you could see the back and forth. Families that say, "Well, I have a cousin on the other side of the border," and people will say, "Well, I have family on the other side of the US border." And so, that dynamic is fairly common. The best place that can give you a snapshot of what I'm trying to explain, out of all the places in the US, is Juarez, Ciudad Juarez, and El Paso.

Elket Rodriguez:
Why? If you can talk about a place that looks like one city, it's Juarez, El Paso. And Juarez is close to El Paso, and I think El Paso is closer to Juarez than they are to their neighbors in Mexico and in the US. They're like an island by themselves. And so, there is a great sense of community. And when things happen in El Paso, and you can see it in the ministry of Rosa Leo Sosa, people from Juarez will come and help. And it's the same thing on the other side. When things happen on the Juarez side, people from El Paso will go there and help because there is a strong sense of community. Whether Mexico or the US exists or don't exist, El Paso can always rely on Juarez and Juarez can rely on El Paso. So it's not a war zone at all. There is a lot of community and there's a lot of families that have relationships from either side from the border.

George Mason:
So that leads, when you talk about helping one another and making the most of this on both sides of the border, part of your work is in dealing with specific cases, with policy, with bringing coalitions together. But part of it is also, just in terms of meeting human needs and helping that. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the [Comadora Beracka 00:22:25] Ministry in Matamoros. Explain that feeding program and how that works, and just humanize this whole thing for us a little bit.

Elket Rodriguez:
Well, if there's one place that would show you how God multiplies food, besides the bread and the fishes in the Bible, it would Comadora Beracka. So, Comadora Beracka is led by two members of Igelsia [Baya DeBeracka 00:22:58]. They're retired. They used to own a restaurant, right? They're probably in their seventies, eighties, this couple. And so, they felt in their heart that they needed to help with the migrants that were arriving in Matamoros, Mexico because Comadora Beracka and Igelsia Baya DeBeracka lived Matamoros, Mexico, just across Brownsville, Texas.

Elket Rodriguez:
And so, they went up to the pastor and said, "We can feed them. I mean, we ran a restaurant, right? We can wake up early and feed these migrants." And so what the pastor did, which is Pastor [Loterio 00:23:37] Gonzalez, who is a partner of Fellowship Southwest, he gets the food, but then he gives them to this beautiful and lovely couple and they start cooking, I'll tell you, at five, at six. They call on other women and men from the church and they cook very early so that they can feed sometimes hundreds and even thousands of migrants who are just expelled from title 42 as we were talking and they don't have anywhere to eat. They don't have anywhere to go. So, they walk around the whole city of Matamoros, which is a big, big city, just providing them with food.

Elket Rodriguez:
And I'll tell you, I've never seen more lovely people. I remember talking to the sister and telling her, I mean, I saw her at three o'clock the day I went to Comadora Beracka and I said, "I mean, you look tired." And she said, "Yeah, I'm tired. But you know what? I love it. I'm doing this for the Lord and He gives me the strength I need to do this." And so, she does this pretty much every day, and she's so happy about it, and so full of life. And her husband told me, "This is what gives me energy." And so when you see those stories, they completely change your mind and your perspective. They could be saying, "They're not my problem. I'm not going to do anything." But even with their age, they still find the energies and God gives them the energy to serve, and that's what really fills their hearts.

George Mason:
Well, that's a beautiful transition to the last thing I want to ask you about then and that is, you work along the whole continuum of charity to justice, right? From meeting an immediate need to addressing the root causes, and trying the way people's lives are affected in this interim period. And yet, you're also calling on people of faith to help in some way, to be partners in some way. So, could you give us two or three things that people who might be listening or watching this podcast and saying, "What could I do," what could they do, Elket, that you would say, "Here's where you can be part"?

Elket Rodriguez:
Yeah, I would normally, this is the last one, but I would put it first. It is advocate, advocate for immigrants. Right now, what immigrants need is for Christians, actually they say it like that, for Christians to be onward voice in the United States. We have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed. It does not make any sense for anyone. I would say the only people that profit off of this system are detention centers. Yeah, it's true. We don't have enough workers, yet we're not allowing immigrants to come in. People were getting older. There's not enough children being born. And yet we're telling immigrants not to come in. So, our high tech employers are looking for workers and we're not giving them that. So it does not make any sense, not just for immigrants. It doesn't make any sense for anyone. And so, we need to sit down and fix the system.

Elket Rodriguez:
And so, Christians can be a voice to them. We have Matthew 25, we're called to welcome the stranger and we're called to love them. And so, that's the first thing I can do. You can call on your Senator, you can call on your representative and say, "My faith calls to ask you, to urge you, to fix this issue." And so, that's the first thing.

Elket Rodriguez:
Second thing, I think, churches can do, it's donate. Donate to Fellowship Southwest's work and the work of this border pastors. Donate to SBF and Global Missions who have a steady presence, or who will have a steady presence at the border moving forward. And the third thing, just pray. I mean, every time I talk to a migrant or a border pastors that's doing this work, what they want is for people to pray for them, to pray for them. And finally, I would add one more thing, which is, if you have the opportunity of visiting the border and visiting one of Fellowship Southwest's border pastors who are working with migrants in Northern Mexico, just go ahead and do it. I'll promise you, it will change your life.

George Mason:
Wonderful. Well, we can make that happen. And if people are interested in knowing how, they can contact us at Faith Commons and we'll be very happy to hook you up. You can contact us at info@faithcommons.org, and we'll get back to you about how you can connect to a border trip. I do want to say too, that while Christians are being urged to do this, and Elket is a Christian minister, and working in Christian organizations, people of all faiths are invited to do the same. And we have many people who watch this program and follow us on the podcast that also want to interact in different ways. And so, feel free to do that.

George Mason:
Elket, thank you so much for all the work you do, and for the challenge of this day that you are rising to and challenging us to do the same.

Elket Rodriguez:
Oh, thank you, pastor. And thank you for lifting up the voices of migrants and be concerned about them. That shows the heart of God is filling you and your church, and that is great, pastor.

George Mason:
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3:
Good God is created by Dr. George Mason, produced and directed by Jim White. Social media coordination by Cameron Vickrey. Good God, conversations with George Mason, is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God, and faith, and the common good. All material copyright 2021 by Faith Common.