Book – The Asylum Seekers: A Chronicle of Life, Death, and Community at the Border

A rare narrative account of the horror of the US-Mexico border

Broadleaf Books

Posted Jan 7, 2025

The Asylum Seekers: A Chronicle of Life, Death, and Community at the Border by Cristina Rathbone will publish by Broadleaf Books on March 18.

From award-winning journalist and Episcopal priest Cristina Rathbone comes the story of asylum seekers trapped at a port of entry to the US: the trauma they carry, the community they create, and the faith they maintain.

Weaving intimate portraits of individuals with broader stories about the community, reporting from the border as a whole, and reflections on the meaning of faith in a place of suffering, Cristina Rathbone tells the story of Mexican asylum seekers living in a makeshift tent camp at the foot of a bridge. Life in the camp is both hectic and harrowing. Families arrive. Families leave. Families get through to the US. Families are returned from the US. Women weep, children squabble, and grown men sob over photographs of their murdered sons’ mutilated bodies.

Here too, however, are beauty, and empathy, and hope. Over time, a leadership team emerges. The community begins to convene daily meetings, establish systems of distribution for donations, and start classes for the kids. Serving as an unofficial chaplain, Rathbone is there through it all: listening, receiving, assisting, and most of all learning about what authentic faith looks like under conditions such as these.

Written in the tradition of My Fourth Time, We Drowned and Rivermouth, The Asylum Seekers: A Chronicle of Life, Death, and Community at the Border (March 18) renders in startling, intimate detail the day-to-day lives of people who are determined to enter the US legally and who often suffer for it. The result is a fierce, poignant inquiry into the dignity of those who seek asylum–and into what we owe each other.

“The Asylum Seekers shines with a kind of moral clarity that illuminates not only the horrific effects of the United States immigration system on individuals, families, and children, but the personal toll of working alongside those affected. A must-read.” –Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration

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About the Author

Cristina Rathbone is an award-winning journalist, Episcopal priest, and spiritual director. She is the author of On the Outside Looking In: A Year in an Inner-City High School and A World Apart: Women, Prisons, and Life Behind Bars. In partnership with Episcopal Migration Ministries, she founded Neighbor to Neighbor, a national network that supports congregations as they accompany newly arrived asylum seekers. Rathbone is the mother of two sons and lives in Massachusetts.