Cristina Rathbone’s The Asylum Seekers is a harrowing and deeply human account of life at the US-Mexico border, where hope, resilience, and unimaginable hardship converge. Rathbone, an award-winning journalist and Episcopal priest, brings her unique background to Juarez, weaving intimate portraits of asylum seekers with reflections on faith and the resilience of the human spirit.

Rathbone, who has previously offered powerful insights into life in schools and prisons, turned to the cloth and now pastors unhoused families in the Northeast. Her dual perspective as a journalist and spiritual leader infuses the narrative with compassion and clarity. In The Asylum Seekers, she chronicles life in a makeshift tent camp at the foot of a bridge, where families fleeing trauma risk everything to seek asylum. Amid the chaos of families arriving, departing, and sometimes being forcibly returned, Rathbone captures both the despair and the beauty of a community determined to survive. She writes of grief-stricken parents, children playing in perilous conditions, and the haunting stories of those mourning unimaginable loss.

Yet, Rathbone also highlights the strength and ingenuity of the asylum seekers. Over time, a leadership team emerges, donations are distributed, and even classes for children begin. As an unofficial chaplain, Rathbone listens, supports, and learns what authentic faith looks like under these extreme conditions.

Drawing on her personal connection—her mother was a Cuban refugee—Rathbone weaves the intimate stories of asylum seekers with broader reflections on community, endurance, and the moral obligations we owe one another.

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This was an eye opening book about Rathbone's experience at the Mexico-US border before the pandemic. These pages are full of sadness, frustration and despair, but also hope, love, and community. I don't think any of us have any understanding of what this process is like if we have never witnessed it and been a part of it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read this book.

The Asylum Seekers by Cristina Rathbone is an eye opening, intimate and honest narrative of life, community, family and endurance at the US-Mexico border. Cristina Rathbone is an award winning journalist and priest who in 2019 traveled to Juarez in order to learn and experience the conditions at the border where families and individuals have fled from trauma and hardship in order to seek asylum. It is a heartbreaking and powerful read as we learn about the stories of families, communities, the young and old who arrive and leave at the border as asylum is denied and granted with no specific reason or system. It is also an exploration of faith and its meaning in such hardship and how it can be a connection with others in need of help and support. It is astonishing how people who have experienced the worst of violence and trauma are able to hold onto their humanity, their compassion, curiosity and love for others as a community grows along the border and leaders emerge to aid others who are suffering and being exploited. It is a necessary and vital read that examines the social, political and humanitarian factors that impact the lives of those who seek to enter the US legally and who often suffer the consequences of changing policies and practices that deny the desperately sought and warranted sanctuary. A powerful honest portrait of faith and asylum that asks for how long can we look away? 4.25 Stars ✨

I thought this was good, and it was interesting to learn about what is going on at the border. The disappointments I had with the book were not really the author's fault - the religious Christian language did not resonate with me, and I wanted more in-depth profiles of some of the families in Juarez. This wasn't really possible because the families didn't stay long, and she did a good job portraying the general situation, especially the strength and spirit of the children.