The Los Angeles Province has been a member of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking (formerly U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking) for over 10 years. As a current board member, I joined 14 others for our annual in-person board meeting in Tucson, Arizona, from November 17th to 19th.
Last November, our meeting was in Washington D.C., where we canvassed our representatives in Congress and urged them to pass legislation to disrupt avenues of human trafficking. This year, our focus was on the U.S./Mexico border in Arizona.
We spent a whole day at the Jesuit sponsored KINO Institute in Nogales, Mexico, serving breakfast to recently arrived migrant families, playing with the kids and bringing warm clothing for those sheltering at KINO. The faces of the children and their protective parents moved us to tears. What will be the future of migrants after so much rhetoric highlighting them as “the problem?”
The next day, we attended a U.S. Federal Court hearing where we witnessed group after group of young Latinos, arrested by U.S. border patrol on October 30th. We watched in horror as the young female judge sentenced 40+ Latino men and women to 30-90 days in prison, followed by deportation. If they ever return to the U.S. and are “caught,” they would face 2-20 years in a U.S. prison. Our concern, as a human rights organization, fell on the fate of those vulnerable, soon to be deported young people and their increased chances of falling victim to human traffickers.
Our final spot was the Cathedral in Tucson, where the patio highlights the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Arizona since 1870. The patio gave us inspiration and energy in our efforts to protect the most vulnerable. Let us join together in prayer for all victims of poverty and violence who simply seek a safe future for their families.