Our History

In the summer of 2018, the whole country watched our border with Mexico. We saw immigration authorities separate crying children and infants from their families. We saw wire cages with babies crawling inside and tent cities of teenagers under military-style guard. We felt helpless in the face of this evil.

Then the superpower of kinship kicked in. Women and men across America joined in a “granny caravan” to the border and the heartbreaks they witnessed changed them forever.

The caravan, which started in Beacon, New York, and named “Abuelas Responden/Grannies Respond,” picked up concerned Americans in each city stop along the journey. In August 2018, ten women from New Orleans joined the caravan to the Mexican border. After stopping in Houston where more people joined the caravan, the group headed to McAllen, Texas where they witnessed, firsthand, the appalling situation at the border. They heard the terrifying stories told by asylum-seekers - primarily from the northern triangle of Central America - fleeing from ever-present and terrifying crime and debilitating poverty in their beloved home countries.

When they returned from the border The Grannies realized that these travelers desperately needed support as they made their way to sponsors across the country. The original 10 grannies from New Orleans were joined by many more NOLA-area Grannies and the NOLA Grannies were born. The NOLA Grannies’ mission is to assist legal asylum-seeking bus travelers stopping in New Orleans as they exit the border and detention centers during their multi-day trips to their sponsors’ homes across the United States.

With persistence and southern charm, the NOLA Grannies befriended the franchise owners of the Greyhound bus station located in New Orleans’ Union Station, the municipal bus and train station in the city. With the local Greyhound owners and employees’ much appreciated support and logistical assistance, The NOLA Grannies met the first group of legal asylum-seeking travelers coming through the bus station in early September of 2018. Meanwhile, the “Original Grannies” of Beacon, New York worked to organize other Grannies Respond groups across the nation who would also meet travelers on buses passing through their locales. And, in addition to Abuelas Responden/Grannies Respond affiliated bus station groups such as the NOLA Grannies, other grassroots groups sprung up to continue the work in numerous cities across the US. We call this network of helpers the “Overground Railroad.”

Grandparents know that you need practical things on a long journey. The NOLA Grannies provide those things: food, water, hygiene items, diapers, blankets, and of course, toys for the little ones who need to play. The NOLA Grannies also provide help reading bus tickets, directions at the station, and most of all, warm smiles that let legal asylum seekers know that they are welcome here.

Back in the fall of 2018, the NOLA Grannies saw their work as a stopgap measure believing that the influx of asylum-seekers would slow down and perhaps naturally abate by Christmas of 2018. This, as we now realize, would not be the case. In fact, while we served 170 travelers during our first week at the bus station, we were shocked at that large diaspora from Central America. By April 2019 we were routinely serving a whopping 700 and 800 travelers and purchasing about 3/4 ton of water each week! In the winter of 2018, we applied for, and received our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. This has helped greatly with donations to support our work.

Starting in the fall of 2019, with the initiation of the Administration’s Migrant Protection Policy (MPP), commonly referred to as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, the Bus Station volunteer groups across the country saw a drastic reduction in the number of asylum-seeking travelers. As thousands of asylum seekers were forced to wait indefinitely in impromptu ‘tent-cities’ on the Mexican side of the border, the number of travelers stopping at the New Orleans bus station plummeted. However, we continue our work because we believe that a toy given to even one child, or a blanket supplied to a cold traveler is worth the effort.

After mid-2019, as the numbers of asylum-seeking travelers dropped due to the Trump Administration’s “Stay in Mexico - MPP” policy, we looked for other ways NOLA Grannies could volunteer their time, energy, and financial support to help asylum-seekers in our area. To this end, we have established several partner organizations where interested NOLA Grannies can volunteer (we loosely call this effort “NOLA Grannies on the Move”) and where we can, we financially assist their work with mini-grants from the NOLA Grannies organization. Please see our partners page for more information.

Update April 2021: While the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined us from our work at the bus station from March 2020 through March 2021, we are now back up and running, meeting buses and serving asylum seekers passing through New Orleans on their way to their sponsors across the U.S.