Franciscan Border Encounter, June 2023

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Mt 25:35-36). These words are a constant admonition to see in the migrant not simply a brother or sister in difficulty, but Christ himself, who knocks at our door.

—Pope Francis
Message for the 109th World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2023

The Franciscan Network for Migrants–USA team organized a learning visit to the Arizona/Mexico borderlands in early June. Thanks to the determination and courage of the local staff and volunteers, we were able to witness the compassionate care, solidarity, and unyielding support for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the region.

Through the generosity of Humane Borders, we were allowed to accompany Kirk, an archeologist who now serves as a volunteer, on a water drop in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The water drop consists of monitoring and refilling water barrels placed in strategic locations. Monitoring is critical due to the ongoing activity of vigilantes, right-wing groups who purport to guard the border. Not only do vigilantes empty, poison, and destroy the water tanks, if encountered they intimidate, harass, and threaten volunteers, and are fully armed, often with military-grade weapons.

After refilling and testing the water, we drove south to Sasabe, Mexico, to visit to Casa Esperanza, a migrant resource center. Alma and her assistant welcomed us and we learned how the center was founded by Grupo Beta as an outgrowth of their efforts to provide water, food, and clothing for the migrants who arrive in Sasabe.

On Saturday we visited Casa Alitas, a shelter and care center in Tucson run by Catholic Community Services. On our visit with Christy, the coordinator of the center, we learned about the care they provide and also the backgrounds of the migrants there. There were guests from Iran, India, and all over Latin America. There were Mauratanians who had escaped enslavement and fled through Mexico, as Mauratania is one of the last countries to fully eradicate slavery. In 2010, the United Nations Human Rights Council reported that “despite laws, programs and difference of opinion with regard to the existence of slavery in Mauritania…de facto slavery continues to exist.”

We spent the afternoon visiting the San Xavier Mission on the Tohono O’odham indigenous reservation. A National Historic Landmark, the mission was founded Father Eusebio Kino in 1692. Construction of the current church was completed in 1797. It is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona, and continues to serve the needs of the local community, the village of Wa:k (the community is known as Wa:k, and its people, as the Wa:k O’odham).

In the evening we joined the Migrant Trail Walkers’ camp, approximately 7 miles outside of Tucson. The mission of the annual Migrant Trail Walk is as follows:

The precarious reality of our borderlands calls us to walk. We are a spiritually diverse, multi-cultural group who walk together on a journey of peace to remember people, friends and family who have died, others who have crossed, and people who continue to come. We bear witness to the tragedy of death and of the inhumanity in our midst. Lastly, we make this sacred journey as a community, in defiance of the borders that attempt to divide us, committed to working together for the human dignity of all peoples.

The trail walkers walk for 7 days from Sasabe to Tucson, as a symbolic gesture of solidarity with all of the migrants who pass through the surrounding desert. The heat can rise to 50°C (120°F) in the summer months; migrants can collapse due to dehydration and exhaustion in the desert, and every year many do not make it.

The Migrant Trail concluded their walk with a Native American blessing ceremony offered by elders and spiritual leaders . Two of our group were able to walk the last leg of the journey, and all of us joined the welcome celebration which included food prepared and served by Human Rights Promoters of Tucson, music, and a foot washing ceremony.

PRAYER FOR THE MIGRANT
Loving Creator, full of love and mercy
I want to ask you for my migrant brothers and sisters.
Have pity on them and protect them, as they suffer mistreatments and humiliations on their journeys,
Are labled as dangerous, and marginalized for being foreigners.
Make them be respected and valued for their dignity.
Touch with your goodness the many that see them pass.
Care for their families until they return to their homes, not with broken hearts but rather with hopes fulfilled.
Let it be.