Brother Arturo Diaz, O.P., Br. Pasquale Manalio, O.P., and Fr. Carlos Amado, O.P. in front of the Casa del Migrante in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on the border with El Paso, Texas.

A New Mission Endeavor
Casa del Migrante

It is 4:00pm on a chilly winter afternoon here in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas.  Today as most days the United States government planes are arriving from places as far away as Kentucky, Wisconsin and Illinois bringing migrants for deportation to Mexico.  Sometimes families are separated in deportation with some members ending up in Tijuana and others here in Ciudad Juarez.

The stories of deportation vary.  One deportee is a man who lived in the United States with his wife and children who were in the country legally. 

Migrants arriving in the darkness and cold of the night are being received by Fr. Martin Walsh, O.P. and Fr. Carlos Amando, O.P.  They will receive a hot meal and counseling, a bed with clean sheets and warm blankets.  Jose Eduardo, in front, is 15 years old.  He spent 21 days hopping freight trains to reach Ciudad Juarez to look for work in the factories here.  He was beaten and robbed by Mexican Police who killed one of his companions.

The immigration officers knocked on the door of their home at 4:00am.  Since he did not have legal status, he was taken into custody for deportation and arrived here at the Casa del Migrante clad only in a t-shirt, cutoff pajama bottoms, and shower slippers.

At this moment there is a volunteer at the bridge crossing the Rio Grande River directing deportees to our Dominican Casa del Migrante.

The deportees are now gathering at the front gate along with migrants who have come north from Central America and Southern Mexico looking for work in the American-owned factories here in Ciudad Juarez.  The migrants who have just come up north bring with them terrifying stories of leaving their native lands of Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  Many traveled hitchhiking or jumping freight trains, struggling to come up the length of Mexico to fulfill their dream up north.  They recount experiences of robberies, beatings, extortions, and sometimes rape and countless forms of cruelty and violence on their journey.

Both groups will be invited in a few minutes to come in for interviews.  Then they will enter the dormitories with hot showers, a laundry room, and a clothing room.  At 6:30pm this evening they will be served a hot meal.  Meanwhile Dominican friars and Sisters and counselors will be available to assist them in putting their lives together.

The Casa del Migrante is staffed by Dominican Friars and the Dominican Sisters of Christian Doctrine.  The friars live here at the Casa and are available to serve the migrants 24 hours a day, seven days a week, meanwhile living the full monastic observance of the Dominican Order.

Brother Pascual Manalio, OP from our Western Dominican Province is now assigned here to live and minister with the friars of the Dominican Province of St. James in Mexico.  I am here for a visit to get to know the life and ministry of Brother Pascual who is once again serving as a missionary of the Dominican Mission Foundation.  Brother Pascual previously served as one of our Dominican Mission Foundation missionaries in Oaxaca and Mexicali, Mexico.

As Americans, we all have very different opinions about the situation of migrants crossing the borders.  However, when we have the cold, the hungry, sick, and injured arriving here at Casa del Migrante, we recall the words of Jesus:  "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink;  I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me." (Matthew 25)

In Christ's Peace,

Fr. Martin de Porres Walsh, OP