Walking in the Shoes of Migrants: Our Journey Continues

Read about the journey that brought Megan to Mexico.

After a week on the road, Tom and I were looking for some rest and hoping that we might find it in Mexico City. It seemed like a good place to explore the culture, get a hot shower and be an anonymous face in the big city. However, our plan was altered just a bit when we heard that a large international conference on migration was taking place there the same week. The interesting part about this conference was that the focus was supposedly on the "southern perspective" — from those who advocate for migrating people.

Suddenly, the reality of meeting migrants on the train tracks wasn't a part of my day. Instead, we analyzed the phenomenon of migration from the point of view of policymakers. While I sat in the nice, air-conditioned room with hundreds of well-dressed movers and shakers in the migration world, I wondered where the dignity of the individual migrant was in this discussion.

The reality seemed so far away. The migrants I had met just days before rested in my heart, their stories being written over and over in my mind as I blanked out on the big words and periodic 15-minute breaks of the conference. Was this trip through Mexico really happening?

A few days later, we got on another late-night bus to make an early-morning meeting with some religious sisters in Saltillo, a northern desert town only 140 miles or so from the United States border.

Saltillo is a beautiful colonial town with cobblestone streets. The town nestles in between hills in the desert. It's always windy there and I felt cold to my bones. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like for a person who has lived in a hot Central American nation their whole life. I certainly didn't know that the desert could get this cold.

We met with another group of religious sisters who managed the large shelter in town. Our first order of business was to accompany our hosts to Mass with the migrants at the shelter because the local priest was scheduled to come. I looked around and realized that I was in the midst of a holy journey, not only for myself but for the men and women surrounding me, whose prayers had become mine.

Even though our trip was going to end in another week, I couldn't help but be nudged by the voices of vocation, calling me to be something more than I imagined. As I learned more about our hosts — a group of three religious women who answered the call to serve migrants despite being marginalized by their religious community — I realized that even those who advocate for the needs of migrants are not supported as they should be. These particular sisters are missionaries of the catechism but because their current work deviated from "catechism" they are no longer in line with the values of their congregation. Even though they still feel like members of the congregation, there are those within the community who do not support their work with migrants and do not consider them members anymore. It's a sensitive issue that brings forth deep emotions from these committed women. There were a lot of people carrying heavy crosses in this small room where the Eucharist was celebrated.

Just 30 minutes later we broke bread there, sharing a meal together. Our informal conversations followed the simple Mass as we waited in line for food and finally sat down to eat. We talked to people about their routes, how they were planning on crossing into the United States and where they planned to go. We learned what the journey was like for people, how they had managed to survive and the stories of those who fell off the train, which is how we came to meet Roberto.

Roberto is a slender Honduran farmer who had intended to pass through Saltillo in a day's time. However, we met him in a hospital bed, where he had spent the last two weeks. Unfortunately, Roberto didn't take the time to rest in his journey as he should have. He spent three days without any sleep, riding the train and holding on as hard as he could. When he reached Saltillo, he visited the shelter and ate a meal. In talking with the other migrants, he realized that another train headed to the border was coming shortly. He decided to forgo a night's rest and, in his excitement, left the shelter to board the northbound train.

Yet Roberto, with all his exhaustion, couldn't hold on tight enough. He fell off, and the train cut the toes off his right foot. Roberto will never make it to the United States now because he is unable to walk without assistance. Within time, he will be deported back to Honduras and be forced to explain to his family that he can't make money for them in the United States. With a family to feed and an economy that doesn't support poor farmers, what is Roberto going to do?

Into the United States

Our trip through Mexico was approaching its last days. The footbridge by which we crossed the Mexico-United States border from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, Texas, signified a changing of pace, culture and perspective. We took an early morning bus from Chihuahua to Ciudad Juárez and from there walked across the border to our "home" country. It was that easy! On the United States side, we waited in the growing line at the immigration checkpoint so that our passports could be verified. We put our bags on a conveyer belt to be screened for weapons, just like at an airport, and were headed out the door. It was very routine. Heading toward El Paso, we took pictures of the huge glass buildings in the skyline, and noticed how "developed" this North American city looked in comparison to the ones I had become used to in Mexico and other parts of Central America. "This is what migrants are coming to," I thought to myself. "A land of excess and opportunity."

On the El Paso side, we met migrants who had crossed the border and were now staying at a nearby shelter called the Annunciation House. These guests were trying to find jobs and a safe place to live before they moved out of the shelter. Parents are beginning to enroll their children in schools. Adults are taking English classes at local community centers. Now, their only fear is that the border patrol may pick them up on the street one day when they least expect it.

While we were in El Paso, the Annunciation House was commemorating the fourth anniversary of the death of Juan Patricio, a guest who had been shot and killed by a border patrol agent two blocks from the house when he went to take out the trash. Juan Patricio was only 19. When the agents stopped him in the street. Fearful they would deport him, Juan ran. That is when he was shot.

This sobering reminder of the harsh reality migrants face made me think about my work in El Salvador, helping to look for the dead and the disappeared. Nevertheless, people keep coming, despite the dangers, because there is a need. The United States economy needs workers and workers need the money.

El Paso is a bilingual city with a binational population. Everyone in town has a connection to Mexico. From the U.S. contractor in need of laborers to the Latinos who now have documentation and are sending remittances back to their families, everyone has a story to tell of how migration has impacted their lives. As we traveled to Tucson, Arizona, we realized that it's no different there.

Our arrival in Tucson was met with smiling hospitality as we visited an organization called Humane Borders. Their primary work is putting water barrels in the desert for migrants to drink, trying to prevent the deaths that happen when unprepared migrants set out on paths that are much longer than they realize. As U.S. borders have tightened in the last 10 years, migrants are forced to utilize more clandestine, dangerous ways of crossing into the United States. Humane Borders also advocates for these acts of mercy, hoping to convince our lawmakers that humanitarian aid is not a crime.

When walls and fences are built in cities like El Paso, migrants who want to avoid these barriers are forced to go deeper into the desert. From the northern Mexican border town of Altar, migrants are forced to walk through the desert for days before they finally reach civilization. Every year, hundreds of people die from heat-related illnesses as they bake under the hot sun in 100-degree-plus temperatures. As Humane Borders drove us on the bumpy dirt roads into the desert and across to the Mexican side, we could see some of the blue flags in the distance. Humane Borders puts the flags up to show the locations of water stops for migrants.

The immigration debate is hard to follow in the media. The reality includes the complexity of families being torn apart and of men and women having no other option but to try finding work in a new land. The life of a migrant includes desperation in being at the mercy of their own country, of Mexico and of the people of the United States. Any solution to this complex problem needs to be not only comprehensive in addressing all issues and needs, but representative of the voices who scream for dignity in the desert, in the land in between.

Every bit of my life as a Catholic Relief Services volunteer led to Mexico and the experience I had there. And every place in Mexico, every conversation, every reflection and hug brought me to where I am today, hopefully a better advocate for the poor and marginalized migrants in our midst. They are the men and women who harvest our fields, build our convention centers, serve our meals and wash our plates. They turn down the sheets in our hotel rooms, pluck the feathers from chickens ready for backyard barbecues and — sometimes — they march in unison in the street, pleading for our voices to join with theirs.