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BORDER-TEXAS Nov-1-2006 (970 words) With photos posted Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. xxxn
Shelter visits give view into world of minors who cross border alone
By Erik Noriega
Catholic News Service
HOUSTON (CNS) -- The artwork by residents of St. Michael's Home for Children tells their stories.
Pieces with titles such as "My unrealized dream of being reunited with my father" and "A dream unfulfilled" told the same basic story: young teenagers tearfully leaving their families behind, crossing hundreds of miles through parts of Central America and Mexico, withstanding physical punishment and ultimately being caught by the U.S. Border Patrol.
St. Michael's and another shelter operated by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston were among the stops for a delegation of bishops and other church personnel on an Oct. 23-27 tour of border-area programs dealing with victims of human trafficking and unaccompanied minors.
From starting points in Tucson, Ariz., Houston and El Paso, Texas, the group traveled to parts of two Mexican states as well.
They met with Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Justice Department personnel; visited shelters for migrant children in Juarez, Mexico; toured a church-run center in Altar, Mexico, that aids would-be border crossers; and met with people involved in a variety of ways with those who enter the United States illegally.
At St. Michael's, while some of the children told their stories to visitors with teary eyes, all ended the same way, with the child saying he or she felt safe and happy to be at the refuge.
Guests of St. Michael's and St. Jerome's Home for Children stay until they are permitted to return home, which can range from a few weeks to more than a year. Bonna Kol, president of Catholic Charities, said St. Michael's was started 20 years ago with the capacity to serve eight children.
"In the beginning of next year, our capacity will be 84 children," she said. "Unfortunately that shows you the growing business side of this problem."
As part of the program for the lunchtime visitors, a group of children presented harrowing accounts of their treacherous journeys to the United States.
Leticia Harmon, director of St. Michael's Home, said most of the residents cross the U.S. border for one of two reasons.
"These children are either coming to the United States to be reunited with their parents, who are already here, or they are hoping to find work to help their family financially," Harmon said.
The ever-changing nature of life at St. Michael's was demonstrated when partway through the program a Border Patrol agent dropped off a smiling 8-year-old boy to join the household.
Earlier in Houston, the group met with representatives of government agencies that have a role in catching and prosecuting illegal immigrants.
The last day of their visit to Houston was spent at the Catholic Charities offices in midtown Houston, where the delegation learned about efforts to assist the victims of human trafficking.
Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto of Orange, Calif., a member of the board of directors of Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said collaboration between charitable organizations and federal law enforcement agencies has proven pivotal in the fight against human trafficking.
This cooperation "has brought about a very effective way of identifying victims of human trafficking and identifying, arresting and prosecuting these types of crimes," Bishop Soto said.
The system of parties working together that exists in Houston should be replicated around the country, he said.
Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., chairman of the bishops' migration committee, said the delegation was surprised to hear federal authorities acknowledge that working with charitable organizations has made them more compassionate to the plight of unaccompanied minors and victims of human trafficking.
"The first thing that's on their mind now is compassion," he said. "That was surprising to hear a government organization say that and how they rely on agencies like Catholic Charities and others, because it is not one of their strengths."
After flying to west Texas, the delegation again crossed the border -- to Juarez -- to visit shelters run by the YMCA and the Scalabrini religious order and another managed by the Mexican government. At the government-run shelter, where children are brought after they are picked up by the Border Patrol and taken back across the border, a group of Mexican high school students arrived.
Nathalie Lummert, of Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the trip's sponsors, said the eight teens were brought into the government-run shelter in Juarez looking disoriented.
They explained that they had been walking in the desert for a school project that required them to collect sample insects. It wasn't until they were stopped by Border Patrol agents that they realized they had left Mexico. Hundreds of miles of the border away from municipal areas are marked by little more than simple fences with a few strands of barbed wire.
After being arrested and fingerprinted by the U.S. agency, the teens were turned over to Mexican authorities.
Lummert said she at first thought the youths might be longtime U.S. residents who had been picked up in a raid, because they were dressed in more stylish clothes than the practical, weather-hardy attire typical of working-class people who try to cross the border illegally. Another youth in the shelter had been living with his parents in New Mexico for four years, and was picked up on his own by U.S. agents. He had been at the shelter in Juarez two days.
The teens who arrived during the delegation's visit apparently were middle-class Mexican students who inadvertently walked across the national boundary, and into the Border Patrol system, she said.
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Editor's Note: A blog of the border delegation's trip can be found on the Web site of the Justice for Immigrants program: www.justiceforimmigrants.org/borderblog.html.
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Contributing to this story was Patricia Zapor in Washington.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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