Border pilgrimage hopes to raise awareness about immigrant deaths

Published: 2003-12-05

SAN DIEGO (CNS) -- Two groups of pilgrims traveled along the border between Mexico and the United States for one week this fall, meeting in communities along the way to discuss the plight of migrants who often risk their lives to enter the United States looking for work. The pilgrimage was sponsored by Church Without Borders, a San Diego diocesan mission outreach project, and by 20 other interfaith and human rights organizations around the country. During the event, one group traveled east from San Diego and another headed west from Brownsville, Texas. Participants who started in San Diego visited the All American Canal, where 10 percent of border deaths occur as migrants drown trying to swim into the United States. The canal has a massive, invisible undertow created by turbines that pump water into nearby fields. "The canal was meant for farming," said Nancy Bureson, a Maryknoll lay missioner and co-director of Church Without Borders. "It was never meant to be a moat to protect the U.S."

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 The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in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 .