America Ferrera Leads Fellow Actresses in Trip to Tijuana Migrant Shelter

Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, and Gina Rodriguez call for change in U.S. asylum policy.

Ugly Betty star and human rights activist America Ferrera led a small group of Hollywood actresses on a trip to a migrant shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, just across the border from San Diego. This group (which included Gina Rodriguez, Eva Longoria, Wilmer Valderrama, and Kerry Washington) visited with migrant families, immigration lawyers, and shelter managers. They listened to stories of long journeys in search of a better life and played with the children staying at the shelter.

“It is easy for me to look at these human beings and see myself,” America Ferrera, who comes from a Honduran immigrant family said in an interview on Sunday. “This could very easily have been my reality in this lifetime.”

This trip was in protest of the current Trump administration policy that requires migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico. “This is NOT a political debate,” Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria posted on Instagram. “It’s purely a conversation of people being there for people, the humanitarian crises in the border is a call we have to answer.. we HAVE to understand that this is beyond our differences.”