By compiling all the messages from readers ready to mobilize for the Mexican asylum seekers for whom she was worried last week, Danièle L’Écuyer had tears in her eyes. Phew! Humanity still exists…
I told you last Saturday the story of Maria and Roberto1, this couple of Mexican asylum seekers whom Danièle, a retired nurse who became a rescue mother for migrants, wanted to help. The couple told their reality in survival mode while waiting for a work permit. How do you feed your one-year-old baby when the last-resort government assistance is $1,300, the rent is $1,500, and the credit card limit has been reached?2
Many of you were very touched by this story and offered your help to Danièle to support the family. Some have offered to offer food or shelter. Others, support or advice for navigating the obscure bureaucracy. Immigrants who have known this kind of loneliness well have offered their benevolent ear.
Danièle has spent the last few days on the phone trying to answer all the readers. “I am proud of my fellow citizens. Many people took it to heart and made this family feel reassured, safe, and know that there is still humanity and generosity. »
Thursday afternoon, Danièle went back to see Maria and Roberto to tell them about the incredible outpouring of solidarity from the readers. She was accompanied by her daughter Noémie, who speaks very good Spanish, to ensure that half of the conversation was not lost between broken Spanish and still-stammering French.
Maria and Roberto were very moved. Maria made a point of sending me a thank you-river message, for the attention of Danièle and all the readers who have reached out to them for a week.
“To everyone who has helped us, you have given us respite, a breath of hope. You have restored our peace and tranquility. We feel blessed and honored. We are completely grateful for all the help you have given us, the possibility of having calm in this storm, that it is no longer a nightmare, of being able to buy food for our son and clothes to protect him. Thank you for being so kind, caring. Thank you for your humanity, for your generosity. Thank you for giving us a second chance, for welcoming us, for helping us, for encouraging us to continue, for not leaving us alone. Thank you to all the people who gave a little of themselves, who reached out to us. With all our heart, we thank them and we will always be indebted […]. Thank you for opening the doors of your home, your life, your hearts to us. We want life to multiply everything they have given us. »
Danièle was very surprised by the generosity of all these readers. Me, a little less. If the outbursts of kindness from readers always move me, I know that they are less rare than you might think.
Of course, whenever there is talk of asylum seekers, migrants or the Roxham Road in this column, there are always people who send me anti-migrant messages. This worrying hate speech, which grows stronger over time, should never be trivialized. But while the hate is getting louder, humanity is making its way behind the scenes. Dogs bark but the caravan moves…
When asylum seekers are not just statistics or an anonymous mass, when they are not presented as a dangerous threat, but for what they are – human beings who have the same right to life and to the dignity that you and me, and who are ready to contribute to society – it is not uncommon for citizens to be empathetic towards them.
This column even sometimes turns into a kind of Contact Network of caring people without my knowledge.3.
It’s magnificent, this generosity, which acts as a counterweight to the dehumanizing immigration policies that have the wind in their sails. But that obviously does not solve the unjust fate of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers and temporary immigrant workers in Quebec treated like disposable humans, reduced to precariousness or exploitation to pick our fruits and vegetables, do our housework or wash our grandparents, as the hard-hitting documentary by Sonia Djelidi and Sarah Champagne showed Essentials4.
Nor does it settle this story of “accommodation capacity” with variable geometry, which suddenly turns into “inability to accommodate” according to political pressure.
It settles even less the even more unfair fate of migrants who have been turned back on Roxham Road since Saturday and who risk taking more dangerous clandestine routes, at the mercy of smugglers.
A certain popular belief, reinforced by the dominant political and media discourse, is that asylum seekers on Roxham Road are fundamentally different from those who, like Maria and Roberto, passed through the airport. The request of some would have a legitimacy that the request of others would not have. This is however not the case5. Regardless of the path taken, we are talking about human beings in search of a better life who would never have made such a difficult journey if they had the choice.
In short, it’s magnificent, this surge of humanity. But unfortunately it remains a drop in a rising ocean.
1. Names are fictitious, story is not.