Going home:
Mexican Catholics minister to migrants on the border

By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
July 19, 2007

AGUA PRIETA, MEXICO — The last time Mario Ramos and Javier Villas tried entering the United States illegally, the truck they were riding in flipped over.

The two Mexicans were sitting in the bed of the truck when their smugglers failed to elude Border Patrol agents near Douglas, Ariz. They had made their way past the 12-mile fence, as tall as 15 feet in places, that stands between Douglas and Agua Prieta.

“There’s no work,” Ramos said, explaining why they tried to enter illegally. He and Villas are from Veracruz in southern Mexico and have tried entering the country three times.

Three times they were denied.

Disagreement over security measures in many ways led to the U.S. Senate’s rejection of an immigration reform bill last month. Many felt the bill, which would have established a path to legal residency for millions of illegal immigrants working in the United States, was too weak on border security.

While others traverse the border without being caught, Ramos and Villas have found border security pretty tight. They’ve given up and are heading back to Veracruz, their hometown.

Back to Mexico

When the Border Patrol brought the two immigrants back to Mexico, they found themselves injured and thousands of miles from home. But they also found help.

Centro de Atención al Migrante Exodus is a center that feeds and shelters migrants who will or have already tried to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

Fr. Cayetano Cabrera, pastor of Sagrada Familia in the Archdiocese of Hermosillo, Mexico, said his parish has always helped migrants, but has been more organized the last six years.

“We have a mere 20 beds, but whoever wants to sleep here, sleeps here,” the priest said June 18. “We’ve had as many as 100 people sleep here on mattresses or on the floor. The problem isn’t where to sleep, but the bathroom and the food.”

In addition to breakfast and dinner, the center also helps migrants get back to their hometown with bus fare. Migrants can stay at the church for three days, or as long as a week if they find a job in town.

Life of the Church

While Ramos and Villas waited for dinner, Archbishop Jose Ulises Macias Salcedo of Hermosillo confirmed more than 50 parishioners into the faith.

“Yes, come Holy Spirit and teach us,” the archbishop said in his homily. “We cannot forget who we are and we cannot forget the Gospel.”

Before addressing immigration, the archbishop condemned recent legislation that would legalize abortion in Mexico City during the first three months of pregnancy.

He called on the Sagrada Familia community to continue its openness to new life and migrants in need.

“They crossed without documents not because they don’t want to do it legally, but because they can’t,” he said.

Since 1997, 1,500 have lost their lives in the surrounding desert.

“They need us,” the archbishop said. “When we love as God loves us, the world will change.”

After the confirmation Mass, Archbishop Macias chatted with parents and posed for photos with the newly confirmed. Then he went outside to speak with the migrants.

Crossing over

One of those migrants was Gilberto Gomez Velasquez, a Chiapas fieldworker who doesn’t speak a word of English. His journey to Agua Prieta from Chiapas took seven days.

In Chiapas, people rent 12-by-15-foot apartments for the equivalent of $50 a week, he said. Indigenous and Spanish communities fight each other over land, but that’s not why Gomez is crossing the border.

“I don’t want to work in a foreign country,” he said. “I want to buy two parcels of land to work in Chiapas.”

He believed that he could work for two years in the United States and save enough to buy that land. The white in his hair and the wrinkles on his face make it hard to believe Gomez is just 37.

He didn’t have enough money to pay a smuggler, so he planned on crossing the border on his own. Gomez doesn’t keep abreast of U.S. immigration wrangling — he just knows wages are better there. 

Hector Quintana and Juan Rodarte arrived at the center after the confirmation Mass ended. The Border Patrol caught these two men three days prior when a fight broke out in a laundromat in Phoenix.

Quintana crossed the border three months ago. He said he routinely enters by walking over the bridge from Juarez, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas.

“I’ve crossed so many times, but this is the first time the Border Patrol caught me,” Quintana said, insisting on speaking in English.

He would make $40 a week in Juarez working as a cook, while he was making $400 a week in Phoenix.

“You can live comfortably over there,” Quintana said, referring to the United States. He plans on spending time with his family in Juarez and then crossing yet again.

“I just say I have American citizenship,” he said. “I’ve done it about 20 times.”

A helping hand

After dinner that evening, Fr. Cabrera sat quietly in the parish’s cement courtyard. There were no flowers or plants, just migrants.

“Our place wasn’t always safe,” the priest said of the migrant refuge. “We had to learn how to make it so.”

Guests at the migrant shelter show identification and are asked a series of probing questions. Migrants can use the telephone, get free hospital care and get help finding family members they may have been separated from while crossing the border.

The ministry begins serving at 5:30 p.m. and keeps its doors open until breakfast at 6 a.m. the next morning. A volunteer keeps watch all night for any migrants that might need help in the middle of the night.

“People don’t want to live in the United States, it’s just the circumstances,” Fr. Cabrera said. “‘Illegal’ isn’t entering a country without papers. ‘Illegal’ is what causes that action.”

Last year, Fr. Cabrera’s parish led an effort to bring together different religions that serve migrants in Agua Prieta. The different groups formed Centro de Recursos Para Migrantes, a resource hub for migrants that stands just steps away from the border gate.

This ecumenical center offers migrants water and food and directs them to other free services.

“We don’t encourage people to cross the border. We tell them about the dangers they’ll find,” said Jose Angel Valencia, director of Frontera de Cristo, a Protestant group.

He pointed to a map of Arizona that showed how long it takes to walk to different cities. It would take more than three days to walk from Agua Prieta to Tucson, according to the map.

“We also provide them information and resources to help them get back to their homes in Mexico,” Valencia said.

He notes that fewer people are coming through Agua Prieta these days. More are going through Sasabe, a border town more than 100 miles west of the center.

The increased security in Douglas has led to smugglers raising their rates, Valencia said. It used to cost $1,500, but is now double. The poorest in Mexico can’t afford passage.

Valencia told a story of a migrant who was caught by the Border Patrol and stumbled into the center. The migrant called his family in Miami to let them know he was OK.

It turns out the smugglers had also called the family, claiming they had the migrant and demanding more money for his release. The phone call from the center saved the family much heartache and thousands of dollars, Valencia said.

Volunteers from the different churches help keep the ecumenical center open for most of the day and night.

“There’s a lot of people here who want to help,” Valencia said, “As many from Mexico as from the U.S.”

If the pundits are right, they’ll need to keep helping for at least two more years.

Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ committee on migration, hoped Congress would take up immigration reform again this year.

“We cannot continue to employ an immigration system that leads to the exploitation of millions of our fellow human beings,” he said in a statement June 29. “The status quo is morally unacceptable and should not be allowed to stand.”