When a video came across Mary Lehman’s Facebook feed asking for medical professionals to come help at a shelter for migrant families who had just crossed the border in Texas, she knew she couldn’t stay home.

A San Diego appellate attorney and former emergency medical technician, Lehman bought a plane ticket for the next day and packed the large black medic backpack she’d carried on two humanitarian volunteer tours in Greece.

“If you’re not well out of your comfort zone, you’re not doing enough,” Lehman said.

She called a retired pediatrician in Chicago, a friend she’d met volunteering in Greece and told him that he needed to get on a plane the next morning as well.


Dr. John Kahler didn’t hesitate.

“When Mary asks you to do something, you know she’s leading from the front, so there’s no questions about it,” Kahler said.

Together, they worked for about a week at a small clinic at Catholic Charities center in McAllen a few blocks from the town’s bus station. When Customs and Border Protection released families from custody after they were caught crossing the border or came to a port of entry for asylum, the families were bused to Catholic Charities, where they got warm meals, showers and medical attention before continuing on their journeys across the country.

McAllen is part of the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector, the part of the U.S. border where the largest number of families arrive.


Almost 62 percent of family members caught crossing the border illegally so far in fiscal 2018 — 42,194 people of 68,560 — came through the Rio Grande Valley, according to CBP data. Another 9,795 family members have come to ports along the Texas border without entry documents, about 26 percent of the 37,395 along the southwest border so far this fiscal year.

Most of the patients the volunteer team cared for were children, Lehman said. Many had flu-like symptoms or digestive issues.

“There were children who just wouldn’t stop crying because of the trauma,” Lehman recalled.

A father brought his 18-month old daughter to her. Asthmatic, the girl was barely able to breathe.


The father told Lehman that government officials had taken away the girl’s two inhalers, which she was supposed to use several times per day.

Lehman, who speaks Spanish, and Kahler, whose language skills are more limited, sent the family to the emergency room.

Another woman told Lehman that officials had taken her diabetes medication. The woman had managed to hide three pills in her pocket so she was still able to take her medicine for now.

The Department of Homeland Security and CBP did not respond to requests for comment.


Lehman ended up riding in an ambulance to the hospital with a mother and son who had spent four days in custody. The son, about 10 months old, was in “clear respiratory distress,” Lehman said.

The boy was diagnosed with influenza in the emergency room.

Lehman said she also checked the parents who brought their children to her. Some began to cry when she asked how they were doing.

“They had been strong for so long with that trauma they went through with their children,” Lehman said. “They had to tell their children, ‘It’s going to be all right.’”


One man waited until the medical duo had seen all of the children in line at the clinic and then approached them about infected blisters on his feet.

When Lehman began to clean his foot, the man protested that his feet were too dirty for her to touch.

Lehman continued her work, bathing and bandaging his feet, and the man started to cry.

“I have no words for your kindness,” he told her.


Many of the women that Lehman helped had bladder infections that she believed were because they hadn’t been able to bathe or shower while they were in custody.

Lehman and Kahler also saw many pregnant women in their clinic. They screened them for potential complications like high blood pressure and gave them prenatal vitamins. A 21-year-old Guatemalan woman didn’t know she was pregnant until they gave her a pregnancy test.

The woman’s reaction stayed with Kahler after his trip.

“She started crying because this is not something she wanted at all but she had no access to birth control or anything in Guatemala,” Kahler said. “She was just devastated.”


Lehman also spent a day volunteering as an attorney at the Port Isabel Detention Center.

“Asylum law is ancient,” Lehman said. “If someone comes to your home or your cave or your fire and they’re in mortal danger, you protect them.”

This trip to Texas felt different from her aid trips abroad, she said.

“I feel like I’m still in it,” Lehman said. “I just feel like it’s here.”


Now that she’s back in San Diego, she’s still doing volunteer work in immigration law.

The woman whom Lehman escorted to the hospital found her on Facebook after she’d returned to San Diego and called her in a panic in the middle of the night.

Her 10-month-old son’s fever had shot up, and they were now in New Jersey.

After coaching the woman through preliminary steps to help her son, Lehman eventually found a humanitarian volunteer in New Jersey through social media friends to help the family.


“I feel like I can’t check out,” Lehman said. “This is happening in my backyard.”

Not all of her memories from the trip were sad.

When Lehman and Kahler wrapped up work at the clinic late one night, they went to a nearby Hooters, one of the few places still serving food, to eat dinner. When the manager there found out why they were in town, he comped their meal, Lehman said.

The night before she left McAllen, Lehman bought a guitar and brought it to the clinic. She played “This Land is Your Land” for the migrants there.


When she handed the guitar to a Guatemalan man, he played the song back to her, adding his own twist. His face lit up, beaming as he held the instrument.

“That was the magic part,” Lehman said.

She said organizations like Catholic Charities that help people arriving at the border are still in need of volunteers, both general and medical. What arriving migrants need most though, she said, are legal volunteers.

She encouraged others to find a way to get involved.


“It’s never convenient, and you can never afford it, but you can go,” Lehman said. “Doing work like this puts things in perspective. This is how the world changes.”


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