This past Sunday, Christian churches throughout the Rio Grande Valley celebrated Palm Sunday, a commemoration of the time Jesus of Nazareth led a convoy of people into Jerusalem. The civilized Roman authorities responded to this non-violent action by having Jesus executed, and the gripping drama of those moments continues to be relived in churches some two thousand years later.

There is considerable scholarship dedicated to the notion that Jesus’ crucifixion was the logical, violent conclusion to a process of scapegoating. At the time, people were restless and the authorities needed someone to blame, and Jesus fit that bill to a “t”.

It is fitting to have this liturgical moment front and center these days, in our small part of the world, as the nation’s contemporary scapegoats are gathered just across the river from Brownsville, some five hundred immigrant families peacefully awaiting entry into the United States. Unfortunately for them, politicians have once again chosen the immigrant as the national scapegoat of the moment.

Jesus’ crucifixion, for all of its horror and injustice, was a politically justifiable action.

I had Jesus’ crucifixion in mind when I learned last week that Customs and Border Protection agents had gathered on the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville. The agents dressed in riot gear, launched what appeared to be smoke bombs, and pulled out their weapons. The incident was caught on video by passers-by who were astonished and confused by this exhibition of law enforcement drama.

The confusion is understandable, as the only conceivable reason for such activity was  the 150 or so immigrants awaiting just a few blocks away on the Mexican side of the bridge. These people were families waiting their turn in line to cross into the United States so that they could begin their asylum process. Despite having had to live on the Matamoros, Mexico city streets for two and three months before being allowed their (legal) entry, none of them had rushed the bridge and none of them had threatened violence. Indeed conversations with the immigrants revealed, over and again, that they were fleeing violence, not looking to incite it.

This was not the first time that US Federal agents have put on this kind of show of force. In San Diego the “practice” became a shameful reality when CBP agents launched tear gas at women and men and their children. This was not the first time such a practice had taken place at the Brownsville bridge. But for a year now the federal government has exercised a series of aggressive actions against these immigrant families. A sensible person watching last week’s “practice” on the international bridge  would reasonably wonder if the next steps might be some US authority sanctioning agents to fire upon unarmed, nonthreatening men, women, and children. This may sound like an outrageous consideration, but just a couple of months ago it was unthinkable that the US would fire tear gas at children, and, as a matter of fact, US courts continue to entertain arguments about whether or not it is permissible for US agents to shoot people in Mexico with impunity.

The immigrants themselves, then, are in a horrific situation, trapped on a sliver of land between the narco-violence of northeastern Mexico and the state-sponsored, threats of violence of the United States.

Armed federal agents, however, are not the only ones who prepare to respond to the presence of immigrants waiting at our ports of entry. In our community, Brownsville and Matamoros civilians continue to bring the immigrants food and clothing, an effort that requires its own type of coordination and planning. As a part of the preparation for this work, first-time volunteers are reminded that the immigrants “are people who may have suffered unmentionable trauma,” and the volunteers are encouraged to be sensitive to this, with an emphasis on having a kind, quiet disposition. This they do, and this they have done, for nearly a year now, working in their own way to soften that space between the rock and the hard place that these families live in.