Migration activists hope Pope Francis will push US deportation reform

Entwined by history, geography and culture, Nogales, in Sonora, Mexico, and Nogales, Arizona, are the gateway towns to what marketers like to call the Sun Corridor. To deported migrants, though, Nogales is a dark and disturbing place – an exit, not an entry.

Department of Homeland Security buses arrive each day and disgorge undocumented immigrants who walk through a cage-like structure from the US to Mexico, where authorities arrange trips home, whether elsewhere in the country or, often, to Central America.

While they wait, many head to shelters run by the Kino Border Initiative to receive food, clothing and comfort.

Kino is a binational partnership of religious organisations and much of its humanitarian work is done quietly, arranged from an anonymous office on the Arizona side that is barely a minute’s walk from the fences and crossings that rudely slice through the conurbation and make the downtowns seem like estranged twins.

Last Christmas, though, the Jesuit reverend who runs Kino discovered that a very powerful man is paying close attention. In October, Sean Carroll and a group of high school students wrote to Pope Francis to let him know about Kino’s work and invite him to the border. A couple of months later, he wrote back.

This week, ahead of Francis’s visit to the east coast of the US from 22 to 27 September, Carroll is in Washington to raise awareness of the continuing plight of migrants, a year removed from the surge of unaccompanied children that the pope called a “humanitarian emergency”.

A new report by Kino and the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States underlines shortcomings in the US’s treatment of detainees.

“Family separation continues to happen – so when migrants are detained, they’re separated and deported from separate ports of entry or not deported together, which increases their vulnerability,” Carroll said.

“Short-term detention conditions in some ways continue to be inadequate – access to food, cold conditions inside the detention areas. And also, I would say, verbal and physical abuse against migrants as well as a number of cases where migrants don’t receive their belongings when they’re released from detention.”

Already hungry, tired and demoralised, deported migrants are also beset by bureaucratic problems as thy pass through Nogales, Carroll said. US authorities confiscate migrants’ money, returning it in the form of a cheque, which they are often unable to cash in Mexico.

As a measure of how many people Kino serves, Carroll said that last year the organisation gave out 38,677 meals, mostly to deportees (some had more than one meal).

Up to the end of August this year, the tally is just over 27,000. Fully operational since 2009, it has a staff of 15 and 80-100 volunteers.

He believes that the number of migrants is decreasing overall, largely as a result of new checkpoints in southern Mexico.

“The Mexican authorities don’t have adequate infrastructure to assess the refugee status of migrants,” Carroll said. “You’re either deporting them back to a dangerous situation or they’re stuck in southern Mexico where they’re vulnerable to organised crime.”

He spoke in Kino’s conference room, occasionally interrupted by the blare of horns from goods trains clanking across the border. Over his left shoulder, plans for a new shelter were fixed to a whiteboard. On the right, on a bookshelf, was a framed copy of Francis’s letter.

It reads, in part: “These young people, who have come to learn how to strive against the propagation of stereotypes, from people who only see in immigration a source of illegality, social conflict and violence, can contribute much to show the world a Church, without borders, as Mother of all; a church that extends to the world the culture of solidarity and care for the people and families that are affected many times by heart-rending circumstances.”

Carroll said: “It is wonderful to know that he was touched by the letters we wrote him and hopefully those letters will inspire him as he prepares to come to the US. Inspire him to speak to Congress and to speak to the United Nations and talk about the human dignity of the migrants, and respect for that God-given dignity – and really to invite us as a country to this culture of encounter.

“It’s really an important part of the US’s history as a nation: receiving the ‘other’, welcoming them and integrating them into society. I suspect he may say something along those lines, urging Congress through its work and its policies to embrace this culture of encounter.”

At a time of brazen political grandstanding on the subject of migration, the pope’s forthcoming visit, interest in the issue and connection with the group has for many migrants “been a source of encouragement for them, from the conversations I’ve had at least”, said Joanna Williams, Kino’s director of education and advocacy.

“What the pope does so effectively is he can reframe issues through his language and that’s our hope and the hope of many organisations as he comes here and speaks to Congress, and speaks on on other occasions. We can so easily slip into this ‘us against them’ mentality – the idea that immigrants must be hurting our country and much more extreme rhetoric – and he has the opportunity to remind us that it’s about human beings.”

Carroll hopes that the pope will help provoke a shift in attitudes among politicians and ordinary people who have hardline stances on immigration. “I think he sees it as fundamental to our identity as a church and has really put his finger on what drives either abuses or lack of response on this issue: what he calls the culture of indifference,” he said.

“The root there is the sense that the migrant man, woman and child is not my brother, not my sister, has nothing to do with me. His point is that they have everything to do with us because we are brothers and sisters, and if we recognise that truth, then that will very much affect how we respond.”