All posts by Chastidy Gilbert

Travel Day: On the Road Again

General, Snapshots

3:15 AM my alarm goes off. I am not used to getting up this early but, strangely, I am wide awake. Whether it be from nerves, excitement, anxiety, or because I didn’t go to sleep till late, I can’t be sure. Maybe all of the above. The 2025 Beyond Borders team begins our journey at the Indianapolis International Airport at a crisp 4:14 AM. We checked our bags and headed to security which was slightly busier than normal for such an early hour, possibly due to the holiday. Amandine had the fabled TSA precheck so she zipped through security for us to meet up with on the other side. Little did we know she got stopped by security for attempting to smuggle in… deodorant.

The 2025 Beyond Borders Team. From left to right: Amandine, Chastidy, Lilly, Makenna, Frankey, and Krista.
The 2025 Beyond Borders Team.
From left to right: Amandine, Chastidy, Lilly, Makenna, Frankey, and Krista.
Plane view leaving IND to DFW
Plane view leaving IND to DFW

We had some downtime between our first 2-hour flight from Indianapolis (IND) to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW). After getting some celebratory coffee and a few breakfast sandwiches we sat down to go over the gameplan for today, dealing out the important tasks such as who will be in charge of choosing the music in the minivan. We took our Travel Day picture and gathered our stuff. The longer we waited the more my excitement and nerves grew to get back out into the field.

The 2024 Beyond Borders trip was my very first time flying, ever. It was a new experience and I didn’t know what to expect. I felt like I was at the mercy of everyone else, not knowing what to do, where to go, and asking a million questions. In reflection, I wonder if those feelings were similar to the ones a migrant would have when they begin their journey around the US Border Patrol Checkpoint. I have flown about 8 times since our last trip but nonetheless, I still felt nervous. We finally boarded, sat down, and got comfortable. As we were taking off I remembered I didn’t bring any motion sickness medication. Thus my 2 hour game of “Will I Get Sick on the Plane?” began. Happy to say that I didn’t but I was immensely thankful to be back on the ground when we landed in Dallas.

Gas pump at the behind-the-scenes rental facility
Gas pump at the behind-the-scenes rental facility.

We had a decent layover which helped my body reset for our short 40-minute flight to San Antonio. Surprise, it wasn’t much better. We landed and made our way to the baggage claim to gather our things and then to get the rental van. As we typically say with these trips, “Expect the Unexpected.” We find the van, which I am 100% sure is the same one we had last year because of the scrapes on the rear bumper, and we Tetris our luggage into the trunk. We buckle in, load up the playlist, AND… the van’s out of gas. The tire pressure light is also on. So, Dr. Latham gets a person from the rental place. A nice but panicked man comes to the van and proceeds to get in the front seat, while we are all still buckled up in the back. Instead of letting him drive the van away with hundreds of dollars worth of field supplies, we stayed in the van wherein he proceeded to zoom through rows of cars in the parking garage. I had to close my eyes for a minute because I was so sure he was going to smash into another vehicle. We go up a level wherein there is a whole area of gas pumps, air for tires, and a multilane full carwash. We get the van fixed up and go back to Dr. Latham whom we left on the level below. FINALLY, we are on our way.

As we do every year, we stop at Torchy’s Tacos. I can personally attest that the one in Indianapolis pales in comparison to the one in San Antonio. Filled up, like the van, we begin the two and a half hour drive to our hotel in Falfurrias, TX. We plug in our playlist of over 20 hours of listening time and get on the road again!

Fallen heroes memorial at the center of Falfurrias.
Fallen heroes memorial at the center of Falfurrias.

When we get to the hotel we quickly unpack our things and head to HEB. We grab stuff for lunches, field snacks, personal goodies, and water… lots and lots of water. What a luxury it is that we can buy 12 gallons of water and have them at our disposal, not afraid we will run out. Keeping these thoughts of how fortunate we are to have access to these things and be prepared for the field is important to get us into the mindset of why we came down here.

Personalized ID cards made for each member by Deputy Don White!
Personalized ID cards made for each member by Deputy Don White!

We put our stuff away and met Deputy Don White at Whataburger for a hardy dinner for our first night. With full stomachs, Don surprises us with a gift. Personal ID cards for each team member for Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery. Such a wonderful gift that makes me really proud to have something with my name on it alongside such an amazing organization. Before we left to go back to the hotel, we had to give some pats and treats to the cutest member of the team, Socks! Although a year older, she was just as excited to meet a new group of friends to play with.

Back at the hotel, we have a quick team meeting to talk about some things to expect and assign some of the rotating responsibilities like who writes the blog, photography, and who is in charge of the walkies. Snacks in hand we head back to our room to pack our bags, shower, and head to bed. With excitement in the air, we settle in ready for the unexpected to begin tomorrow with our first search!

Chastidy

Documentary Poster for the Missing In Brooks County

In Their Shoes

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

It is about a week before the 2025 Beyond Borders Humanitarian Team’s mission to Brooks County, TX, as I write this. I am fortunate enough to have participated in last year’s mission. I have trekked through the heat and harsh vegetation, filled water barrels along frequent migrant routes, and helped recover individuals who fell during their journey. Nonetheless, the preparation for this trip remains as challenging as ever, both physically and mentally. Even now I am haunted by the potential atrocities we may encounter and what the future holds for migrants.

Since last year’s trip, I have done my best to advocate for and educate those around me about the human rights crisis at the southern border. It remains a silent issue despite sharing my personal experiences, providing links to this blog and additional resources, and inviting speakers to discuss the crisis. Brooks County is the site of a large mass disaster largely ignored and hidden in plain sight. After last year’s trip, I felt empowered by the purpose I found and the positive impact I made through search and recovery efforts. However, since returning, that sense of empowerment has been replaced by deep guilt and sadness.

I am not the first to say I am an extremely emotional person. I always have taken the experiences and emotions of others to heart making the written and oral stories I’ve read and heard so deeply disturbing and heartwrenching. It is neither fair nor just that such tragedies occur at the border. Ones in which no one should have to experience. This crisis is a matter of life and death—a stark and devastating reality at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In preparation for the upcoming trip, I decided to rewatch Missing in Brooks County, a 2021 documentary about the human rights crisis at the border. The film highlights the heartbreaking stories of individuals who have gone missing and the desperate efforts of their families to find them, aided by humanitarian groups like The South Texas Human Rights Center, Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery, Beyond Borders, Texas State, and others. Stories of people like Homero Roman Gomez and Juan Maceda Salazar.

At certain points in the documentary, you see conversations where family members send text messages to their loved ones crossing the border—desperate pleas asking where they are, if they are okay, and begging for a response just to know they are alive. The silence is deafening. It’s often said you cannot truly understand someone’s pain until you walk in their shoes. In 2022 I had a similar occurrence with my own family. I will never forget the overwhelming anxiety and terror I felt trying to reach them. I must have called more than a dozen times, left voicemails, and hundreds of messages. Inconsolable and completely in the dark, all I could do was think about every and any possible thing that could have happened. The anxiety making myself physically sick. The difference is that my situation was resolved after a couple of hours with my loved one being found alive and safe. Unfortunately, this is not the reality at the border. The harsh reality is that only a very small portion of missing migrants are ever found alive or dead.

Regardless of opinions or beliefs, the events at the border are not just numbers or statistics. They are real people—real mothers, real fathers, and real children with families who worry about them. I urge everyone reading this to imagine being in the shoes of a migrant’s family. Would you not want people doing their very best to locate your loved one?

I am fortunate to have been selected to join Beyond Borders in helping these families and ensuring that migrants are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. I look forward to continue providing even the smallest change to the crisis and reuniting people to their families.

Please take some time and watch Missing In Brooks County to learn more about the crisis and work Beyond Borders works to do.

Chastidy

A New Reality

Reflections
A view of Dallas, Texas on our flight back home to Indianapolis, Indiana.
A view of Dallas, Texas on our flight back home to Indianapolis, Indiana.

This is my first day back home in Indianapolis. Today I woke up naturally and not to an alarm. I was able to leisurely roll out of bed and, on my own time, and start to unpack. There’s no more sense of urgency to quickly get my things together to go out to the field and search. Although I am very happy to be back in my own bed and with the people I love, I feel a sense of longing. On the ride to the San Antonio Airport, I remember looking out the window at all the thick and thorny brush that had left cuts on my hands and clothes. I was sad that I wouldn’t be out there today with Don, Ray, Socks, and my companions. I won’t be able to see an entire night sky of stars outside, unpolluted by the lights of the city. Nor will I be out trekking through breath-taking scenic and massive ranches, searching for those who have gone missing. Being out in nature and doing something with a great purpose made me feel incredibly accomplished and motivated. Today I find it hard to be motivated to do anything, writing this reflection included. Instead, I lay here and look at some of the photos taken down in Texas. Now that I’m back here, in my normal life, I can’t help but feel ‘Did all that even happen?’

The constellation 'Orion the Hunter' taken the night we used Don's infrared drone.
The constellation ‘Orion the Hunter’ taken the night we used Don’s infrared drone.
Giving Don a Bluey bandaid after getting pricked by a Cat's Claw thorn bush.
Giving Don a Bluey bandaid after getting pricked by a Cat’s Claw thorn bush.

I began to think about my pre-trip reflection and my thoughts the days before the trip. I realize that I thought about the trip selfishly in the beginning. I asked: What would I get from this trip? How am I gonna handle the Texas environment? Will I be able to handle my emotions? Can I make a good contribution to the team? My initial thoughts all were about me while the realities of the crisis were a background concern. It was when we were down in Falfurrias did the crisis become my main concern. Some of these selfish thoughts permeated while we were on the trip. I felt the need to prove myself and find things in the field, take good pictures, and be professional. I needed to prove to myself that I can do this as a future job. I needed to show that it was a good decision to bring me to Brooks County. Although it was hard to push these thoughts aside, I had to realize that, in the larger scheme of things, my anxieties were no match compared to those of migrants attempting to cross into the United States. Even being at home those thoughts continue to resurface. I feel a sense of great guilt that I cannot keep these egocentric thoughts away and instead focus on the issue plaguing the borderlands.

Scene from one of the ranches we searched having a small area of water that is unsafe to drink.
Scene from one of the ranches we searched having a small area of water that is unsafe to drink.

Although I did research and read personal accounts before leaving for Brooks County, I wasn’t prepared to see the things I did and hear the stories Don, Ray, and Eddie had shared. With every heart-wrenching detail, I had to keep reminding myself that these didn’t happen decades ago, they happened weeks or months ago. While I was studying for exams for school, somebody’s child was lost, dehydrated, scared, beaten, and battered. While I ordered pizza, someone was eating the last of their canned fruit while taking a moment’s break inside a mot. Why am I safe here while others risk their lives attempting to cross through Brooks County? It doesn’t feel fair, coming back to my comfortable lifestyle in Indianapolis, while others are sleeping on trash bags outside exposed to the harsh South Texas environment. Dr. Latham had told us that we couldn’t choose to whom we were born and the privileges inherited with that. We could, though, choose what to do with that privilege. Going to Texas and working to make the very slightest change in the human rights crisis along the border is one way to use that privilege. I know that what we did in Texas was truly meaningful and, now more than ever, I want to continue to make a difference in people’s lives and ensure everyone receives the basic human rights they’re entitled to.

Chastidy