$5.7 billion USD.

Enough money to provide Medicaid for 1.4 million people.

Enough money to give the Environmental Protection Agency a 60% raise.

Enough money to resettle 253,000 helpless refugees.

Enough money to double funding for citizenship and immigration services.

It's also the precise amount of money demanded by President Donald Trump of the United States of America for the construction of a border wall on the USA's southern border.

With this, I implore you: is it truly worth it?

Before you answer, consider this: friends, you have the numbers and statistics of the situation laid out neatly before you. They are simply restated truths, counted time and time again to ensure the utmost accuracy from the sources. However, there is an aspect missing here that is crucial to the process of determining one's view on the matter: the emotion. What numbers like those above can tell you is how many other things we could do with the funding for the construction of a border wall. What they cannot tell you is what kind of emotional and mental impact this will have on the people involved, how their lives would be changed, how they would feel. However, what can tell you this is candid, heartfelt conversations with those directly involved, by reaching a point of mutual emotional understanding through uninhibited honesty. Fortunately, I myself traveled to the USA's southern border and had these sort of interactions myself, and I can say with a clear mind and a broken heart that I will never see things quite the same.

Carmen's Story

While at the border, we frequently spent time in Las Cruces, New Mexico, often volunteering at the Border Servant Corps.' "Casa de Paz." Through this, I had the opportunity to learn the raw, authentic recipe for a scrumptious savory snack called gorditas, taught by a warm, gentle woman by the name of Carmen. Carmen herself is an immigrant from Mexico, and passes on the goodness that helped to get her here by continuing to cook for others at the church, educating and spreading her heart's warmth every step of the way. However, she too reminding us of the pain immigrants often endure, and the many imperfections that the United States' immigration system holds. Now, I have the privilege of passing on her life's story- and the heartache that comes with it.

Carmen has cooked for groups like the one I was a part of for 20 years, utilizing her experience with our immigration system to educate others about what really goes on, and what it really does to people like herself. She had 4 kids, the oldest and youngest being adopted. Her youngest was a lovely girl by the name of Maria Isabel. However, sweet Maria Isabel was disabled. "She was a very special girl," her adopted mother, Carmen, said. Eventually, she graduated and was even able to walk. Due to her specific medical complications, Maria Isabel required a particular specialist to see her, yet there were reportedly none in their city of Juarez, Mexico. Like any mother would do, Carmen did whatever she could to amass the funds needed to take Maria Isabel to the United States for medical treatment. After putting out advertisements on the radio, she eventually reached her goal and was able to transport her daughter to the United States. If not for the goodness of the people of Juarez, Maria Isabel's time would have been cut short much sooner.

However, when arriving in the hospital of the United States, they were told to return, because they had no money, nor did they have insurance. Here they were, 2 helpless people, one of whom could breathe her last at a moment's notice, and here we are, the capable hands of the United States medical system telling them that if they breathe their last, it will not be the United States' air. However, like the strong woman she was, Carmen would not budge. Thanks to the aid of various independent charities in the USA, Carmen was able to pay for her daughter's medical care. For 8 months, the pair stayed with a friend in her tiny 2 bedroom home, with Maria Isabel sleeping in the hallway as her bedroom. However, they eventually were not able to stay there any longer, and were left with no option but to turn to the Ronald McDonald house.

Following this, 9-11 occurred, triggering frequent raids on workplaces. Terror constantly plagued Carmen during this time, yet an inexplicable sort of luck managed to keep her out of harm's way. "I believe that God was protecting me during this time," Carmen said, her eyes glassy, "I believe that there's angels all around us." Carmen then looked up at all of us, tightly gripping a tear-soaked tissue in her hands, and said something that gave me an entirely different view on why people immigrate to the United States. "I didn't come to the USA looking for papers. All my life I've worked. Worked the same here as I did in Mexico. The only reason that I came here was for my daughter." Not for herself did she flee to the USA, but for the health of her unimpeachable, impotent child.

Following this, a volunteer urged Carmen to apply for her papers, which she eventually obtained on counts of domestic violence. She specifically remembered one volunteer, who had said to her, "Why? If you knew you didn't have the papers, why did you come?" Carmen's reply is the sun which shines light on actions that we cannot explain. "If you had a sick child, and you were told that a doctor in China could save your child, do you think that a river or a fence can stop you? Of course not. The love of a mother is a biggest you can find." The day Carmen got her papers, she felt a joy like no other- yet what was the first thing she thought of after the envelope found itself in her hands? Her family.

However, after Maria Isabel turned 21, things grew complicated. Her insurance ended, charities and services became less and less available. She had so many surgeries done on her, that by the last one, her skin physically could close over the layers of stitches that had piled up in her skin. One day, Maria Isabel asked, " Mama, could you give me the headphones? I want to listen to some music." A few moments later, Maria Isabel removed her headphones, threw them at her feet- and had a heart attack. Carmen felt her life fall to pieces before her, and her heart fall to pieces with it. Even still, Carmen would never renounce love, would never renounce the love we could share as a human race. "Because if we look up into the heavens," she said, "God hasn't divided us. He does not say 'white people here' and 'brown people here.' We divide ourselves." She told us, "Work hard, but remember, all the money in the world can never buy you love."

Taking it a Step Further

Person after person asked poor Carmen why she came her without the papers she knew that she needed, why she would even come here at all. As Carmen said, we separate ourselves, refusing to open our hearts to feel another's pain and truly understand. Sure, person after person will come to the USA with malicious intent, but that is not everyone. When you look at a refugee next, believe in your hearts that they too have a story like Carmen's, a story that pushed them to a point where the only option was to flee or else admit defeat and succumb to life's cruelty. Pain and struggle push people to do whatever it takes just as Carmen did, often steering them onto a path of mischief. These are the people that cause fear for our border security- the people who have been pushed over the edge by their life's pain. However, generosity and kindness like Carmen experienced firsthand can help to share this burden and lessen the pain, allowing many others like Carmen to keep their minds clear and their lives on a righteous path. After all, an enemy will only act as an enemy until we call them as our friend.

However, there's still more to take away from Carmen's plaintive story than the pure intentions that comprises the determination of many an immigrant. Her story ultimately ended in the early death of her beloved daughter, yet what if the situation had been handled differently by our government? Simply acquiring the funds to travel to the United States in the first place was a struggle in itself for Carmen, and even after this was done, she was faced with yet another set of complications. However, consider this: what if her and her daughter had not been turned away from the hospital for lack of finance? What if they had been given the opportunity to elaborate on their situation in order to best find ways to receive guidance on how to proceed? Would her daughter have lived?

The Takeaway

America, we cannot help everyone, but we can help many. When a hurt and helpless person of another culture comes to us, every last drop of hope placed in our hands, how can we not do our best to help? Some enter our country with vitriolic intentions, yet others, like Carmen, seek to improve their lives- and in some cases, even to save their lives. Our excuse is often a lack of finances, or prioritizing our own country's complications and plans for improvement first. However, if we can demand $5.7 billion to improve a fence that arguably is not worth it, then can we not demand the same finances to help people like Carmen? As she said, she did not come here to obtain citizenship, she came here to seek the proper medical care for her daughter and then find her way back to her family If not for the complications she faced with finding work as an illegal immigrant, or being able to pay for mere shelter, she likely would have returned to Mexico as she had dreamed. Helping others can help us, too.

However, perhaps one may still question the motivation of the immigrants we discuss so frequently. "Are they bitter for the hardships they have faced?" one may ask. You'd think so, wouldn't you? I personally can share an experience that contradicts the very fabric of this assumption, where I had the opportunity to interact with a little girl and her sister, who had just been released from a detention center. Her and her sister consistently spoke of the detention center's harsh conditions, saying that there were cameras in the bathroom, and lights were always on, never allowing them to rest their weary heads on the frigid metal floors. Despite this, she was incredibly ebullient, maintaining a seemingly unfeasible level of energy the entire day. With me and many other students in our group, she played catch, football, even danced and told us what she liked about school- all with a bright, beautiful smile on her face. Her sister was just the same, smiling and snickering with groups of girls as if they had been friends for years upon years. If one had walked in at this time, they would have seen us, American students, interacting with them, Honduran immigrants. We braided their hair, laughed and chatted in broken Spanish, and just allowed ourselves to bask in a bubble of bliss for a while.

Knowing this, you can imagine my surprise when I was told at the very end of the night that the gleeful girl that I had the privilege of interacting with had fled her home with only ¾ of her family. Who was she missing? Her father. Why? Because her father, her one and only father, had been brutally murdered, forcing her to flee from the place that had been her home since birth.

We frequently discuss the immigrants attempting to cross our southern border with the intention to traffick drugs and/or people, acknowledging them as the problem but also grouping them together with those who simply seek a better, safer life. The thing is, they certainly are not oblivious to this view. I had the opportunity to visit a federal court and hear preliminary hearings, where essentially the charges of one person or a group of people are restated, as well as the rights they have throughout the process. While in court, I saw essentially three types of charges: trafficking of drugs or people, the distribution or attempted distribution of said substances, and illegal entry/entry without inspection. The charges ranged anywhere from a fine to life in prison, varying from group to group and case to case. Certainly, some of these charges are far more severe than others, as shown by the difference in punishment for an illegal entry case versus a human trafficking case. Throughout all this, though, a few things remain the same.

Even if you had not committed a particularly dangerous crime, you would be in a rough, shapeless jumpsuit and chains.

Excruciatingly tight chains, shackled around your waist and ankles.

If you did not understand English, a headphone set would be forcefully shoved into your ears with a translator speaking into it.

Most, if not all, people would not smile at or even acknowledge you.

Thinking about it, it's quite unbelievable that we still find reason to put our fellow humans in dense, sickly sleek metal chains, even if we do have reason not to trust them. Chaining up another human is akin to putting a helpless little dog in a cage. In other words, it's animal, savage, utterly cruel. Simply put, it's inhumane.

And the thing is, if you treat people like they aren't human, they'll act that way too. Perhaps then, America, rather than extending our fists to shield ourselves from the security issue we have found to be so complexly problematic, we should extend a hand to lift up our comrades.

Maybe we can't always open our doors to them, for whatever the reason may be. We may not be able to open our walls, but we can always open our hearts.

Now that doesn't take $5.7 billion, does it?