The shoelaces did it for me.
Before I volunteered with Team Libertad, I thought I understood the mission: meet asylum-seekers who have been brought to the Atlanta airport to continue on their journey to loved ones elsewhere in the country. And I wasn’t wrong.
But it’s more complicated than I thought. They arrive with hardly any personal belongings – but, boy, do they have papers. Lots and lots of papers. So Team Libertad meets a variety of personal needs. They may need phone chargers, food, shampoo, maybe a winter coat if they’re headed somewhere cold. You may recall that Glenn donated necessary personal items to Team Libertad last month.
But the first thing the travelers want is contact with their loved ones, the people they are traveling to meet. If they have a phone, they immediately contact their loved ones and start making travel arrangements. If they don’t have a phone, Team Libertad has phones they can borrow.
Once they have a flight reservation, the Team Libertad volunteers help them print boarding passes, assemble the necessary paperwork, and escort them through security and out to their gates. At this point, they are so happy and excited as it becomes real to them that they will actually see their friends or family members in just a few more hours.
But about those shoelaces. One day a man came through whose shoes were tied with string, like the shoes in the photo above. He asked for shoelaces and, of course, Team Libertad had them.
The fact that the US government had taken away this man’s shoelaces really struck me. People who come to this country seeking asylum are fleeing their homes because they fear persecution. To seek asylum, they must be present in the US or seeking entry into the US. They have not broken any US laws by seeking asylum.
Yet the US government has chosen to treat asylum-seekers like criminals. ICE holds asylum-seekers in a detention center (the ones who come to the Atlanta airport come from Stewart Detention Center, a medium security prison in Stewart County, GA). Some are released “on parole;” others are “bonded out.” From the moment they arrive, they are treated like criminals, like others, like someone who is less than.
For some of the asylum-seekers, the volunteers of Team Libertad may be the first friendly faces they see in this country, people who see them as fellow humans who are on a journey and need a helping hand. And maybe some shoelaces.
If you are interested in volunteering with Team Libertad, contact Karen Leary at jkleary@comcast.net.
The photo, by Heidi Levine, appeared in the 3/8/2023 AJC in a story about Russian POWs in Ukraine. The caption to the photo explains that the shoes are tied with one string so the wearer can walk but not run.
Written by Karen Leary