BORDER ISSUES
The Need
Too many people along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border live in poverty, without
access to adequate housing, sanitation, clean water, medical care, and living-wage
employment opportunities. Hundreds die each year crossing the border along
dangerous offroad routes.
CLINIC's Response
CLINIC has thoroughly documented problems on the border in its publication Chaos on
the U.S.-Mexico Border (pdf). CLINIC has joined forces with several other major
Catholic organizations to focus their efforts on the border crisis.
The U.S.-Mexico border region highlights some of our nation's most deep-seated
challenges. These include the tension between national security and the United
States' dependence on foreign-born workers, its role in the global economy and its
heritage as a nation of immigrants. Migrant crossing deaths, high poverty rates,
substandard housing, inadequate health care, poor working conditions, and families
divided by U.S. immigration laws characterize the border region.
Many of these conditions are documented in CLINIC's publication, Chaos on the
U.S.-Mexico Border: A Report on Migrant Crossing Deaths, Immigrant Families and
Subsistence-Level Laborers. In 2003, the U.S. and Mexican bishops' conferences
issued a historic joint pastoral statement dealing with the movement of people across
the border. This statement, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope
calls for greater solidarity with migrants and between the people of Mexico and the
United States.
As the result of increased attention to the border region, a unique, binational
collaboration of local border dioceses and national Catholic agencies has formed.
CLINIC has partnered in this initiative with U.S. and Mexican border dioceses, Catholic
Relief Services, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Migration and
Refugee Services and numerous other departments of the United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops. This coalition allows participants to address problems that require
a multidisciplinary, binational solution.
The initiative combines advocacy, public education, community and worker organizing,
and increased legal, pastoral and social services.
CLINIC's Border Project highlights include re-opening its El Paso Field Office, with an
attorney representing noncitizens in detention and a labor attorney educating and
organizing low-income workers. CLINIC has also begun funding two immigrant-led
community-based organizations through its National Immigrant Empowerment Project.
Under this project, the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso and Colonias
Development Council in Las Cruces, New Mexico develop local immigrant leadership
and seek local solutions to systemic problems in their communities.
The Need
Too many people along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border live in poverty, without
access to adequate housing, sanitation, clean water, medical care, and living-wage
employment opportunities. Hundreds die each year crossing the border along
dangerous offroad routes.
CLINIC's Response
CLINIC has thoroughly documented problems on the border in its publication Chaos on
the U.S.-Mexico Border (pdf). CLINIC has joined forces with several other major
Catholic organizations to focus their efforts on the border crisis.
The U.S.-Mexico border region highlights some of our nation's most deep-seated
challenges. These include the tension between national security and the United
States' dependence on foreign-born workers, its role in the global economy and its
heritage as a nation of immigrants. Migrant crossing deaths, high poverty rates,
substandard housing, inadequate health care, poor working conditions, and families
divided by U.S. immigration laws characterize the border region.
Many of these conditions are documented in CLINIC's publication, Chaos on the
U.S.-Mexico Border: A Report on Migrant Crossing Deaths, Immigrant Families and
Subsistence-Level Laborers. In 2003, the U.S. and Mexican bishops' conferences
issued a historic joint pastoral statement dealing with the movement of people across
the border. This statement, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope
calls for greater solidarity with migrants and between the people of Mexico and the
United States.
As the result of increased attention to the border region, a unique, binational
collaboration of local border dioceses and national Catholic agencies has formed.
CLINIC has partnered in this initiative with U.S. and Mexican border dioceses, Catholic
Relief Services, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Migration and
Refugee Services and numerous other departments of the United States Conference
of Catholic Bishops. This coalition allows participants to address problems that require
a multidisciplinary, binational solution.
The initiative combines advocacy, public education, community and worker organizing,
and increased legal, pastoral and social services.
CLINIC's Border Project highlights include re-opening its El Paso Field Office, with an
attorney representing noncitizens in detention and a labor attorney educating and
organizing low-income workers. CLINIC has also begun funding two immigrant-led
community-based organizations through its National Immigrant Empowerment Project.
Under this project, the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso and Colonias
Development Council in Las Cruces, New Mexico develop local immigrant leadership
and seek local solutions to systemic problems in their communities.
415 Michigan Ave., NE
Suite 150
Washington, DC 20017
202.635.2556
202.635.2649 fax
media inquiries:
e-mail me
(202) 635-5810
Suite 150
Washington, DC 20017
202.635.2556
202.635.2649 fax
media inquiries:
e-mail me
(202) 635-5810
photo: INS
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