When a Venezuelan woman sat before a group of high school students, her son at her side, her voice trembled. She spoke close to no English, relying on a student from Cathedral High School — a fellow Lasallian school near the U.S.-Mexico border — to translate as she recounted the journey that brought her to the country’s limits.

For many in the room, including La Salle students, it was the first time they heard the story of a migrant firsthand.

“Hearing her story was really eye-opening,” junior Sawyer Kerrigan said. “That was why we all went there: we wanted to hear personal stories.”

That moment was one of the few direct encounters students had with migrants during El Otro Lado, a week-long, annual immersion, which took place from Feb. 18 to Feb. 24 this year. The trip brought 10 La Salle juniors to El Paso, Texas, and was designed to provide insight into life at the border, offering a perspective beyond headlines and political rhetoric.

Led by the Encuentro Project, an immersion program based in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez region that aims to offer students a deeper understanding of immigration, along with Director of Campus Ministry Mr. Carter Powers and counselor Ms. Chris Babinec, the experience blends education, reflection, and — typically — hands-on service. 

In years past, the El Otro Lado immersion’s main appeal was the unique service opportunity it offered to students, getting the chance to offer a helping hand at nearby migrant shelters.

Traditionally, service is not just a minor aspect of this trip; it’s the essence of it.

However, students and staff expressed, this trip was reshaped by new immigration policies that sharply reduced border crossings, resulting in a stark mutation in the immersion’s focus. 

Looking forward to El Otro Lado since her freshman year, junior Gabrielle Jones anticipated being able to personally meet migrants, “to get firsthand experiences,” she said, and “to talk with them [about] any issues that are happening right now.”

“Since this administration has really cut down on the number of people that can get into the country, and has also cut down on the number of programs for asylum seekers, it has become really hard for people to get in,” junior Leah Simon said. 

With fewer opportunities for direct service, Mr. Powers shifted the focus to learning, immersing students in lectures and discussions led by individuals with firsthand experience of the border. 

He saw leading the trip as a “no-brainer,” he said, with some Cathedral students accompanying La Salle students on the immersion. Having previously worked at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Mr. Powers noted that around half of the students cross the border daily to attend classes. 

These students have what many referred to as a “fast pass,” or SENTRI, across the U.S.-Mexico border, allowing them to cross in about half an hour, while those without it can spend up to two to three hours waiting, according to the Cathedral boys.

“When you are at that school, you only get a sense of one community. You don’t get a sense of ‘okay, these are the El Paso, kids; these are the Juarez, [Mexico], kids,’” Mr. Powers said. “It’s this perfect representation of basically one community that got split in half by this border.”

After some of the Lasallian Christian Brothers who lived next to Cathedral High School left two years ago, The Encuentro Project repurposed their house, turning it into a space for groups wanting to fully grasp the border experience. The house sits on the same block as the school, keeping it closely tied to the community.

It was here that both schools learned together.

The Venezuelan woman’s story marked the only direct encounter students had with a migrant during the trip, facilitated by Brother Héctor, who accompanied the immersion group during their stay at the Lasallian Brother’s old home. 

For the rest of the trip, students heard from experts — Border Patrol officers, lawyers, and educators. 

Through these lectures, junior Max Deggendorfer “realized that history is kind of on a pendulum,” he said. “It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better, but it’s always going to swing back.”

When it came to the lecturers who spoke to the group, “they were all prepared to talk to us,” Jones said. While these presentations provided tremendously valuable context, for her, they lacked the immediacy of lived experience. 

“The closest I feel that we got to raw information was when we talked to Border Patrol,” Jones said of her experience of being confronted at the border wall.

In previous years, Border Patrol officers openly gave public presentations during the immersion trip. This year, however, according to Mr. Powers, there was more hesitancy.

“When I ran the immersion [at Cathedral High School], Border Patrol would come and talk to us,” Mr. Powers said, as they had an established relationship with two local officers in particular who had themselves come from migrant families. 

Often, they would come in to share their personal stories about what caused them to join the Border Patrol. Even when they approached the students unexpectedly, “they talked to us,” he said. “It was just kind of like this friendly conversation… but there was never this kind of intimidation.”

This time, within minutes of students taking pictures near the border wall, Border Patrol officers appeared, rushing onto the scene. 

“It was crazy how fast they showed up,” Kerrigan said. “That would be really scary for someone who had just crossed — trying to get asylum and seeing these two huge trucks racing toward you.”

Despite the shift away from public presentations, Mr. Powers managed to get one officer to answer a few questions after they were seen at the border.

One student asked how he handles children who cross the country’s lines.

“He said that he knows it’s a scary experience so he keeps candy in his car,” Simon said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

All the way up in Oregon, students reflected that it can be easy to stay disconnected from issues thousands of miles away. At El Otro Lado, that isn’t an option.

“It’s hard to hear about all of the things that are happening, and then see the people that are helping facilitate it, but also seeing them for being human,” she said.

Ms. Babinec agreed, saying “these sorts of things — they strike at the heart of your humanity.”

Not only does it humanize the enforcers of the issue, she said, it humanizes the victims all the more.

Through the bars of the border, students spotted rubble strewn about. Nearby, a small, beaten-up pair of little girl’s shoes sat in the dirt.

“The kind that had ‘My Little Pony’ on them,” Simon said. “I don’t know where that little girl is, and I hope she’s okay, but the reality is she’s probably not in this day and age.”

Working towards remedying the sadness around them, at the end of each presentation, Mr. Powers always posed the same question.

“What’s something right now that’s giving you hope?” he said.

Some lecturers struggled to answer, but he asked it every time nonetheless.

“I think making sure students recognize, ‘hey, this is really heavy stuff. The reason we’re having you guys learn this stuff is because I truly believe this will give you what you need to create change,’” Mr. Powers said. 

Jones agreed, saying, “if we lose hope then we can’t make any progress.”

Alongside this question, time was carved out during the lulls of each day for students to reflect on their experiences, either by prayer, writing a journal entry with a partner, or participating in a group discussion. 

Mr. Powers aimed to frame it as a question for the students as well: “Throughout this experience how have you recognized what Jesus is talking about?” he said. “Whether how we should be concerned for those that are oppressed, or those that we treat as an other, or even just in the sense of how people have hope and faith despite a very difficult situation.”

Kerrigan personally found the reflection time to be very beneficial. “I think we needed it,” he said. “That was a really helpful thing for us.”

When watching the students throughout the immersion, Ms. Babinec witnessed a change in them.

“I’d say a fair few of them spoke about saying, ‘okay, now that I have firsthand information and have met with experts, I feel more empowered as a young person — or just as a human being — to get involved in these conversations and [to] do something about it,’” Ms. Babinec said. 

“I think that’s a radical transformation — to go from uncertainty to certainty,” she said.

Mr. Powers plans to arrange a meeting for the students who participated in El Otro Lado to discuss how to apply the experiences and knowledge they gained.

“Regardless of what your opinion on immigration is, I think that people would all be a little better off if they really invested some time into just trying to understand what these people’s lives are like — even if that’s just trying to put yourself in their shoes,” Simon said. 

That understanding and appreciation for the reality of the border highlights the tough situations people on both sides of it experience, she expressed.

“Nobody wants to uproot their lives,” she said. “Nobody wants to put themselves in imminent danger, and nobody wants to be separated from their little kids.”