BEREA, Ky. — Families struggled to learn a language not their own, bartered for food, risked their lives for water, went through medical checks and were sometimes deported Saturday afternoon. However, the scenes that unfolded were not on a country’s border, but rather at a central Kentucky college during an eye-opening simulation that offered a firsthand account of immigrating to the United States.

“My parents came in (to America) as refugees,” said Muntathar Alshimary, whose family immigrated from Iraq during the Gulf War. “I wanted to kind of experience what they had experienced. You hear them talk about it all the time, but you don’t ever really ever feel it. I just wanted to know what it was.”

Participants of Walk a Mile in My Shoes: A Migration Simulation at Berea College were paired into family groupings, given cultural backgrounds and taken through a series of stations — simulating experiences refugee families might go through from attempting to get food, obtain water or learn a new language. All went through faux medical checks. Some were “quarantined” while others were “arrested.” Some “immigrants” were resettled, though it was a small percent, and the rest were “deported.”

After experiencing the stations, individuals went through the debriefing room. They were allowed to ask questions, process their experience and talk to a real life refugee.

“Walk a Mile is designed to give people a hint of the experience from the perspective of a refugee,” Sarah Rohrer, associate director of the college’s Center for Excellence in Learning through Service, said.

While immigration simulations and exercises are annually performed by a number of K-12 students nationwide, the Walk a Mile simulation offers participants a timely, more engaged experience in the wake of national immigrant-focused protests.

Rohrer said the idea to host Walk a Mile came after a group of students participated in Louisville’s public simulation event in the fall of 2015 and returned moved by the experience.

CELTS reach out to Louisville-based Global Human Project, who created the simulation and Rohrer said they agreed to come to Berea.

In a statement to The Richmond, Kentucky Register Saturday morning, Berea College President Lyle Roelofs said that throughout the college’s history, it has welcomed all people regardless of their race, gender or national origin into its educational community based on the scriptural motto established by their founder John G. Fee that “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

“In the present difficult moment, the simulation ‘Walk a Mile in my Shoes’ shows that we stand in solidarity with refugees who are fleeing persecution and danger in their home countries,” he said.

Student Lucas Collett said he wanted to participant due to his interest in assisting the Kentucky Refugee Ministry. Collett noted that despite it only being a simulation, he experienced a lot of anxiety.

“Everything throughout the entire simulation was against us,” he said. “There were corrupt officials (and) systems.”

Collett said Walk a Mile was extremely relevant to him based on current events and gave him a new perspective when it comes to what immigrants face while attempting to make a new life in America.

“I was kind of on the fence (before),” he said. “But now I definitely understand the refugee’s struggle and that people just want to get a better life.”

King writes for the Richmond, Kentucky Register.