Little Rock rabbi travels to US/Mexico border to draw attention to humanitarian crisis

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — As thousands of Central American migrants march toward the US southern border, reform rabbis and other faith leaders including Little Rock Rabbi Barry Block, are headed to the border as well.

Rabbi Block, leader at Congregation B'nai Israel, is representing the Central Conference of American Rabbis in a pilgrimage that's been titled "Let Our Families Go". The gathering of clergy represents "a bold new effort to mobilize faith communities (particularly Jewish faith communities) around the issues of immigrant justice and human rights," according to a CCAR press release.

Block left Little Rock on Wednesday to join up with the 24-hour mission on Thursday. The goal of the pilgrimage is to bring awareness to the humanitarian crisis brewing at the US/Mexico border - especially drawing attention to what Block claims is an illegal new Trump administration policy that limits migrants seeking asylum to requesting said asylum at official U.S. ports of entry only.

"We'll be visiting the Juarez/El Paso border crossing where we understand that asylum seekers are being prevented from presenting themselves, except in a very small trickle," said Block. "Asylum seekers are being marooned on the bridge, and some are jumping into the river which of course risks their lives and risks apprehension."

It's an issue of immigrant justice and human rights, according to Block - an issue that Block says is eerily similar to US immigration policies of the mid 1920s that enacted immigration quotas, restricting the immigration of Eastern European Jews attempting to escape persecution.

"Who knows how many Jews might have been rescued from the Hitlerian Holocaust had the United States remained open to immigration," questioned Block.

In addition to bearing witness to what's happening with asylum seekers, Block and other faith leaders plan to tour a tent city in Tornillo where immigrant teenagers are being detained. They also plan to render aid to an inordinate number of migrants being released randomly with no access to support.

"It's overwhelming El Paso's ability as an interfaith and social service community to provide for people who are released there with no means and nowhere to go," said Block of random migrant releases.

Block said he and other rabbis plan to wash migrant clothing and provide a meal to migrants, something to help express solidarity between the Jewish community and the suffering immigrant community.