By EFE
Mar 29, 2024, 01:53 AM EDT
Migrants who are stranded on the southern border between Texas and Mexico will make a Stations of the Cross this Good Friday. People will nail a cross to the barbed fence that the Texas Government placed on the Rio Grande or Rio Grande, where the barrier has caused injuries and even death to those who try to cross.
The foreigners will gather at 10:00 a.m. local time, in front of point 36 of the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas, where migrants are gathered waiting to cross into the United States.
The tour will begin on the last avenue that migrants cross before arriving in the United States, from where they will walk in turns with the cross on their backs until they reach the Rio Grande, in front of the wall gate.
The cross is the burdens they carry on their shoulders
Carlos Mayorga, coordinator of the Ángeles Messengers Collective, told EFE that the cross represents the burdens that these travelers carry on their shoulders.
“The migrants will carry this cross, which is nothing more than the representation of the weight of the Mexican and Central American authorities that have abused them along the way, the weight of the indifference of the United States Government, the weight of apathy and inhumanity of the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott,” Mayorga commented.
He added that they will lift the cross and leave it embedded in the barbed wire barricade that Governor Abbott put up last year, and refuses to remove, despite a ruling by the United States Supreme Court.
“The only thing they are looking for is peace”
The Government of Mexico has denounced that this increases the risk of migrants being injured or dying while crossing, as happened on January 14 with a Mexican woman and her two children who drowned in Piedras Negras.
“When we leave the cross there in front of the United States, we want to send a message of mercy to all these humble families who are only looking for peace,” said the activist.
Mayorga said there are now around 400 migrants setting up sleeping places with blankets to spend the night next to the Rio Grande on the U.S. side hoping to cross the barrier.
Migrants fear INM agents
He added that they do not return to the Mexican side because they fear the agents of the National Migration Institute (INM), who “have been tormenting them all along the way like the executioners did with Jesus.”
The scene will occur in the midst of the unprecedented migratory flow in the region, where Mexico reported an increase of nearly 77% in irregular migration in 2023, with more than 782,000 undocumented foreigners detected.
In addition, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) last September declared the border between Mexico and the United States as “the most dangerous land migratory route in the world”, with more than 686 migrants dead or missing in 2022.
Keep reading:
- More than 2,000 migrants begin their Easter walk from the southern border of Mexico to the US to show their difficult journey
- Court extends blockade of SB4 law in Texas that criminalizes immigrants
- “Viacrucis migrant” asks for free transit to leave the southern border of Mexico