Rallies, prayers, Border Patrol greet freedom riders on the road

Published: 2003-10-01

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- As buses on the cross-country Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride arrived at stops along their route to Washington and New York, hundreds of people gathered for prayer services, rallies and other events. But it took the intervention of Catholic leaders and members of Congress to end one unscheduled stop by the Border Patrol in Texas. Two busloads of freedom riders who set out from Los Angeles Sept. 23 were held up for several hours outside El Paso, Texas, when the Border Patrol pulled them over at a checkpoint Sept. 26. Agents questioned riders about their citizenship but they declined to answer. The Border Patrol found no evidence that any riders were in the country illegally, so no one was arrested and the buses were eventually released. El Paso Bishop Armando X. Ochoa and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony both apparently got involved in trying to persuade the federal agents to release the buses and their riders.

Copyright (c) 2003 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .