Andrea Rudnik has retired after decades of teaching, but every day, she rises early to continue to make a difference in people's lives.
Rudnik is a volunteer coordinator for Team Brownsville, which provides assistance to asylum seekers in Brownsville, Texas, as well as those waiting in the Mexican cities of Matamoros and Reynosa.
Team Brownsville was established in July 2018, and Rudnik, 62, has been part of it from the start. She came to Brownsville 36 years ago with her husband Paul Rudnik, 64, also a retired teacher who has joined the cause to help people at the border.
Retired teacher Andrea Rudnik with a child at Matamoros, Mexico, on the U.S.-Mexican border in 2019. Rudnik has been a part of Team Brownsville since it began in 2018.
| Photo courtesy Andrea Rudnik
“We started with a group of local teachers from the Brownsville Independent School District who knew each other through their school district, through our mutual acquaintances. And most of us worked in the special education department. So, that's how we knew each other initially,” Andrea Rudnik told Austin Journal. “But soon we got people from other areas, just people from all over the country have come to volunteer with us. So, we have a core group that’s here in Brownsville of maybe about six or eight people that are just the people that are always volunteering on a weekly basis. And then we have hundreds if not thousands of volunteers out there in the country that have come at one time or another. And some of them come back multiple times from all different places in the country.”
In March 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an order that imposed restrictions on migration across the southern and northern borders. The rationale behind this decision, known as Title 42, was to mitigate the transmission and spread of the coronavirus. The CDC deemed these measures necessary in order to safeguard public health and reduce potential risks associated with the pandemic.
The U.S. government has recently decided to transition from Title 42 to Title 8 of the U.S. code, which is an established legal framework. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has emphasized that the consequences for migrants entering the country without a legal basis under Title 8 may be more severe.
The decision to end the implementation of Title 42 has raised questions about the reasons behind this change, and the implications for the situation at the border.
Under Title 8, migrants apprehended without legal authorization may face an expedited removal processes, which can lead to swift deportations. Additionally, individuals subjected to expedited removal may be banned from reentering the country for a minimum of five years. The Department of Homeland Security has emphasized that these consequences should be expected for those apprehended under Title 8 authority.
Team Brownsville adapts to the conditions on the ground and has offered a variety of programs in the last three years to assist asylum seekers. It has a dual mission: to continue supporting the asylum seeker community in the cities of Matamoros and Reynosa, Mexico, and to welcome and support families released by U.S. authorities into the United States at the Brownsville Bus Station.
Asylum-seekers released from detention at the bus station are met with a smile by Team Brownsville members and provided food, water, shelter and other basic necessities. They also receive legal, medical and other services.
“The majority of asylum seekers who reach the U.S. southern border are currently forced to wait in Mexico prior to being processed by immigration authorities,” according to the Team Brownsville website. “These people are vulnerable, hungry and in need of shelter. We partner with like-minded teams in Mexico to provide humanitarian assistance.”
Rudnik said one team member is stationed at the welcome center and coordinates the volunteers that deal with the asylum-seekers.
“So she explains to them what needs to be done, how we do things,” she said. “She’s the go-to person during the week.”
Meanwhile, Rudnik and another team member pick up supplies, including snacks, underwear, T-shirts and anything else that is needed at that time.
“We’re just the ones that are picking up constantly,” she said. “And last week, well, actually the last two weeks, because our numbers were going up to 1,000 (per day), we were doing multiple trips a day just trying to keep up with the demand.”
Rudnik told the Austin Journal that every day starts with picking up breakfast items and other supplies. But then it becomes a puzzle that must be solved.
“Probably one of the biggest challenges right now is not knowing from day-to-day how many people we’re going to be serving,” Rudnik said. “So it makes it challenging to know what we’re going to need as far as supplies, what we’re going to need as far as volunteers. You know, the volunteers out there in the country, they see the news reports and they say, ‘Oh, they’re getting 1,000 a day. OK, I want to come, I want to bring a group,’ and then it could be by the next week we’re down to what we are now, which is not even 100 people in a day.
“And so, if a group suddenly shows up, it’ll be kind of like, ‘Oh, well, you missed the surge, but we can put you to work making snack bags.’ So, what we’re doing right now is, the city of Brownsville decided that they were going to start accepting the state buses, in other words, the Abbott buses,” she said. “So, they started that on Friday and there’s six different cities that they’re going to. And so, we were asked to assist with getting meals prepared, getting snacks prepared, getting diapers and wipes and things like that, so that when the people are on their two-day trip across the country, they’ve got stuff to hold them.”
The much-hyped “surge” at the border when Title 42 ended didn’t happen, Rudnik said.
“Oh, no, no. It’s going down now,” she said. “It’s gone down dramatically from last Friday to Saturday and Sunday. We only got about maybe 150 people through. And most of those people that we were seeing on the weekend were people that had actually come the day before or a couple of days before, and they were coming back for food and supplies and things like that. They weren’t newcomers.”
Rudnik said Team Brownsville members have a businesslike relationship with the government staffers they deal with on a daily basis.
“When we interact with Border Patrol, it’s because we’re going over to the immigration building and actually picking someone up,” she said. “So, in general, it’s cordial: ‘Good afternoon. I’m here to pick up so-and-so.’ ‘Yes. Sit down and wait. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
“You know, it’s not like we’re best buddies,” Rudnik said. “We’re just doing our job and trying to get the people out of there that we’ve been sent to get. So occasionally there’ll be someone that’s a little snappish, but it kind of goes with the territory.”
She said the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the process a bit.
“We had to figure out new pathways, how we’re going to get around the restrictions. And basically, the bus station didn’t really want us to work in the bus station anymore,” Rudnik said. “They were only allowing people that were ticketed passengers inside the bus station. So, one of the volunteers just made up backpacks with the hygiene kits and snack packs and dropped them off with the Greyhound people and they just distributed them as asylum seekers were released from, primarily at that time, the Port Isabel Detention Center.
“But there were people that already across the border by the time that all the restrictions kicked in,” she said. “And so, it took a while to kind of empty out Port Isabel Detention Center. And then I think there were still people that were getting over that were crossing the river.”
Some were from countries such as China and were difficult to expel, Rudnik said. While they see and assist people from multiple countries, she said most now are coming from Venezuela.
“It is by far the biggest the largest population that we’re seeing now, and we were seeing a lot of Chinese for a couple of months,” she said. “We were seeing groups of let’s say 50 or so. It started out mostly men. Then it shifted a bit to also include women.”
Rudnik said the Chinese asylum-seekers never stay in nearby encampments. Finding a way to communicate with them can be a challenge.
“Oh, we don’t have people that speak Mandarin. And that’s been an issue,” she said. “But we've had to use Google Translate to just find the one person in the group that maybe does speak a little bit of English. You know, we kind of walk along the line saying ‘English, English, English,’ and sometimes somebody will pop their heads up and say, ‘Me.’ And so, we’re like, ‘OK, you’re the leader now.’”
Rudnik said it’s important for people to realize the vulnerable nature of the people forced into this tenuous and often dangerous situation at the border.
“They should know that these people are coming for legitimate reasons, that they’re not a danger to us, that they would be assets to our society,” she said. “They’re in danger rather than being dangerous.”
Rudnik said people can help by donating supplies, funds and volunteering. They can contact Team Brownsville through its website, Facebook page or simply order items from its Amazon wishlist page. She said anyone who has a question or wants more information can email her and she will respond.