Description

The Asylum Seekers is a powerful, deeply affecting piece of journalism by award-winning journalist and priest Cristina Rathbone that provides an intimate look into the lives of people trapped at the US-Mexico border. Rathbone captures the trauma endured, the community forged through shared hardships, and the resilience of faith amid profound suffering.

Drawing upon her own personal connection to immigration—her mother arrived in the US as a Cuban refugee—Rathbone travels to Juarez in 2019 determined to understand the harsh reality facing those seeking refuge in America. Once there, she discovers individuals and families living in a makeshift camp beneath a bridge waiting for entry into the United States, witnessing firsthand both their despair and extraordinary strength.

Through carefully crafted storytelling, Rathbone combines deeply personal portraits of suffering and perseverance with detailed observations of the broader border conditions and crisis. She portrays the daily lives of men, women, and children—the heartbreak of families separated, returned, or waiting endlessly, and the agony of parents mourning murdered children whose photos they carry.

Yet within this harsh landscape Rathbone also finds hope, compassion, and solidarity. Over time, a leadership group emerges from the community, organizing daily meetings, distributing donations, and even initiating education programs for the children. Throughout it all, Rathbone serves as an unofficial chaplain, quietly aiding, comforting, and, above all, absorbing powerful lessons about faith and empathy under the most challenging circumstances.

In the tradition of works like My Fourth Time, We Drowned and Rivermouth, The Asylum Seekers brings together detailed reporting and compassionate storytelling to examine the lives of people who persistently strive to legally reach the United States, often enduring unimaginable hardship. Rathbone’s vivid narrative offers a deeply moving exploration of asylum-seekers’ dignity and poses essential questions about our responsibilities to fellow human beings in need.