IN A DIMLY LIT shack in Northern Mexico, a group of Mexican migrants huddles silently around the Rev. M. Lucie Thomas.

They are mostly men, save one woman – a single mother of one. She left her child with family in southern Mexico and made her way to the town of Altar, Sonora, approximately 60 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

It is here this woman says she intends to stay until she figures out how to smuggle herself across the border into Arizona, where she will work to send money back to her child.

She says she has tried -- and failed – to cross the border eight times, the most recent unsuccessful trip just a day earlier.

“I was afraid this time, because last time I was caught. They told me I’d be in trouble,” she told Thomas about her encounter with the Border Patrol. “But they treated me well. They said I hadn’t done anything wrong yet. I believe God is with me during this journey.”

Thomas, rector of St. Andrew’s in Nogales, Ariz., was one of 47 Episcopalians that traveled from Green Valley, Ariz., to Altar on April 13 as part of an initiative called “Putting Faces on Border Issues.”

A northward view
Organized by the Diocese of Arizona, with four key parishes throughout Arizona, the initiative is meant to educate parishioners and clergy about the phenomena of migration by providing an “inside look” from south of the border.

With the launch in 1994 of  “Operation Gatekeeper,” an effort coordinated by the U.S. government to seal off key ports of entry along the border, it became increasingly difficult for migrants to cross move through public ports of entry along the border.

As a result, thousands are attempting border crossings through the most treacherous parts of the desert, often succumbing to exposure and dehydration. More than 2,000 migrants have died while attempting to enter the United States since “Operation Gatekeeper” began.

More are expected to die this summer, the hottest time of the year in Arizona, despite the efforts of Episcopal groups such as the Companions of the Cross, made up of women who place put jugs of water along the most treacherous paths of the desert.

Here in this crowded, humid room referred to as a “casa de huéspede” or “guesthouse,” the 20 or so men gathered around Thomas and others say that they are staying in Altar until the “right time” comes for them to try to cross the border.

Translating their words into English, Thomas turns to his diocesan companions and says: “They ask that we pray for them.”

Her parish in Nogales, about two-and-a-half hours drive northeast of Altar, is sister to the only Anglican parish, Santa Maria Virgen, located in the Mexican state of Hermosillo. Like the others on the trip, Thomas said she decided to make the journey to educate herself about present-day border problems.

Others agreed. “This trip gives faces to the statistics I hear,” said Molly Sweeney, a county health nurse who is also a member of Doctors without Borders. “It makes it personal when you meet the people and talk to them.”

“There are new undertones of racism whether or not they call it that,” said Judy Conley, a member of Arizona diocese’s anti-racism committee. “We need to explore as a diocese what we need to do to change that.”

Slum-like guesthouses
Because of its proximity to the border, Altar has become a natural stop along the path many migrants travel to cross into the United States. Forced from their homes by lack of work, these native peoples – mostly young men – travel sometimes for days, spending what little money they have to make it to the border.

Once in Altar, they bunk down in slum-like guesthouses, paying anywhere from $2 to $3 a night for little more than a bunk in a room with a half-dozen others.

“The migrants arrive here and stay five to seven days and look for ways to cross the border,” said Francisco Javiar Garcia, the former mayor of Altar. “Basically they are sorting out how they would get from here to their destination city.”

Garcia is now the director of human rights at the Centro Comunitario de Atención al Migrante y Necesidad, which translates loosely into Community Center for Migrants and Those in Need. He said the small agricultural town had grown by thousands since the migration boom began in 1997.  That was when maquiladoras, industrial and clothing plants or “sweatshops,” began springing up along the border, supplying an abundance of work for the poor and cheap labor costs for companies.

“It changed Altar,” Garcia said. “Suddenly, people were flocking to Altar on their way to the border. When this started happening, no one gave it much attention. Nobody had ever prepared for this.”

A need to build a center to care for the steady flow of migrants became apparent, he said.

In 2001, supported by the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Hermosillo, the Migrant Center was built. A year earlier, the Rev. Rene Casteñeda arrived in Altar to serve both the settled community and the migrant population.

Casteñeda is director of the center, which provides everything from a free meal to free medical assistance and hospitality.  Casteñeda works with a handful of volunteers to keep it operating. Garcia is responsible for documenting human rights violations that migrants have experienced along their journey, both in Mexico and the United States.

Try and try again
“The migrants say they are often humiliated with insults by the Border Patrol on the American side,” he said. “The majority say they are received well in the U.S. But more recently, Americans have become more suspicious.

“It is very difficult to change their mentality about the dangers of the desert. When they come here [to Altar], they have already invested in it,” he continued. “They try again and again. They are not highly defeated.”

Surrounded by volunteers from the center, the Rev. Tom Buechele, vicar of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bisbee, Ariz., who was the prime organizer of the April trip, strums his guitar while singing the popular song De Colores.

The travelers from Arizona have just been fed a traditional Sonoran meal by the volunteer chefs at the center and have gathered to discuss the day’s impressions.

“What breaks my heart is that the strongest, brightest, most courageous are leaving [to cross the border],” said Jean Buechele, Tom’s wife. “They’re bright and healthy, and they’re leaving.”

Others, who had visited various guesthouses that afternoon, echoed her sentiment, adding that some migrants had asked them questions such as, “Why do you make it so hard for us to come North?”

The Rev. Gavino Garcia, who visited with the group in Altar on behalf of Santa Maria Virgen Parish and the Roman Catholic Diocese of West Hermosillo, said he thought there should be a pastoral relationship between Mexico and the United States, one of mutual help in the work of the border.

“Above all, we need to think about what unites us in God without interruption of the border between us,” he said.

When asked about the next step for the Episcopal Church, Lucie Thomas and Gavino Garcia each emphasized that the church is only in the initial phase of planning and education, beginning with this trip to Altar.

“I think there should be a pastoral relationship and one of mutual help in the work along the border,” Garcia said.

Meanwhile, a solitary cross memorializing those who have died stands at the beginning of the bumpy dirt road leading from Altar to the border.

The cross reads: “Van mas de 2,500. ¿Cuantos Mas?” – “There are more than 2,500. How many more?”